Posted on 09/05/2003 6:57:11 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
An immigration-reform group says American companies are abusing foreign-worker programs in the high-tech industry to the detriment of U.S. workers, even as industries close to home create "a growing pool of available [American] labor."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform reports in a new study despite continued high unemployment in America's high-tech sector, companies are electing to import cheaper foreign workers instead of rehiring U.S. counterparts.
Companies are able to bring in skilled foreign workers under work visa programs authorized in the 1990 Immigration Act. As WorldNetDaily reported, the special H-1B and L-1 visas allow corporations to import up to 65,000 cheap skilled workers from foreign countries to fill alleged labor shortages, a claim author, columnist and Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly says "was always a fiction and now is nonsense."
The high-tech industry pushed successfully in 2000 for Congress to increase the importation level to 195,000 for fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003.
In the new FAIR report, analysts said the programs are being used to keep industry wages artificially low, among other purposes. But the programs also are being used to shortchange American high-tech professionals, it said.
"H-1B and L-1 visa programs allow people in professional occupations to work in the United States on a temporary basis," said a summary of the study, titled "Deleting American Workers: Abuse of the Temporary Foreign Worker System in the High Tech Industry." "At a time of high unemployment, the high-tech industry is flooding the labor market by importing workers who are willing to work more cheaply than American high-tech workers."
Among the study's key findings:
"Labor dynamics are changing. Major companies can now hire people with top skills for $60,000 a year. We don’t need people on H-1Bs anymore. We can replenish staff from our own population," Howard Rubin, former adviser on technology issues to President Clinton, said in a February 2002 interview with InformationWeek.
"One recruiter flatly told me they have 50 H-1Bs willing to work cheap ahead of me in line," said one Dallas database administrator in a Sept. 26, 2002, interview with the San Jose Mercury News.
As overall unemployment remains at levels unheard of throughout the 1990s, U.S. corporations are reporting cheaper labor costs.
"U.S. employers incurred a much smaller increase in the cost of hiring and retaining workers during the second quarter of 2003 than they did in the previous three months," said the Dow Jones news service, rising only 0.9 percent from April to June. "The cost of wages and salaries grew even more slowly, rising just 0.6 percent."
"Follow the money," says Schlafly. "The big corporations hire aliens from India and China at half or a third the [U.S.] wages, work them long hours without overtime pay and treat them like indentured servants unable to quit for a better job."
"What makes this racket possible is the partnership between corporations and government," she adds.
Other critics point out more than just foreign worker programs are costing U.S. jobs. Writing in The American Conservative magazine this month, Pat Buchanan – two-time GOP candidate for president, author and syndicated columnist, blames free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement as a leading cause of U.S. job loss.
"Across America the story is the same: steel and lumber mills going into bankruptcy; textile plants moving to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and the Far East; auto plants closing and opening overseas; American mines being sealed and farms vanishing. Seven-hundred-thousand textile workers – many of them minorities and single women – have lost their jobs since NAFTA passed in 1993," writes Buchanan, a co-founder of The American Conservative.
"Undeniably, free trade has delivered for consumers. A trip to the mall, where the variety of suits, shoes, shirts, toys, gadgets, games, TVs and appliances abounds, makes the case. But what has it cost our country?" he said. "Every month George Bush has been in office, America has lost manufacturing jobs. One in seven has vanished since his inauguration. In 1950, a third of our labor force was in manufacturing. Now, it is 12.5 percent. U.S. manufacturing is in a death spiral, and it is not a natural death. This is a homicide. Open-borders free trade is killing American manufacturing."
There are signs the Bush administration may be getting the message.
Sarah Nelson, consular officer at the U.S. consulate in Kolkata, India, told the Economic Times newspaper Washington was set to reduce the number of H-1B visas it issues to information technology, or IT, professionals next year. Also, Nelson said U.S. officials were discussing changes to the L-1 visa program.
"We would like to protect U.S. jobs," Nelson told participants in a conference organized by the Federation of Indian Export Organizations and Indo-American Chamber of Commerce.
She said India holds the highest number of H-1B visas. She also said India's IT industry could suffer under the reduced visa program.
Meanwhile, President Bush, speaking to a crowd at the Kansas City Convention Center Thursday, was emphasizing job growth as well as improving the economy. He said he would introduce a half-dozen steps – from energy to tort and health-care reform to decreasing regulation – to accomplish his goals.
"Our economy is starting to grow again," he said. "Americans are feeling more confident. I am determined to work with the United States Congress to turn these hopeful signs into lasting growth and greater prosperity and more jobs."
But recent polls reflect Americans' anxiety over the economy, and many have faulted the president for not making noticeable improvements.
Pollster Scott Rassmussen, in a survey released yesterday, found just 34 percent of Americans believe Bush is handling the economy well, while a plurality – 41 percent – give him a poor rating.
And "looking ahead" confidence isn't strong. Thirty-eight percent of Americans believe the economy will be better in a year while 33 percent say worse, said the survey.
Based on FAIR's findings, the foreign-worker visa programs could be adding to the administration's job-growth problems.
"Given that the United States has a population of 290 million people, a large share of whom are highly skilled and educated, there is no need whatsoever for a high-tech guestworker program," the report said. "There is overwhelming evidence that the program is operated largely as a means for employers to hold down their costs by discriminating against American workers in their hiring practices."
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