Posted on 04/26/2006 9:02:28 PM PDT by Steel and Fire and Stone
Due to copyright restrictions, I cannot post the excerpt I intended from USA today. Therefore, I not quote directly from the article, and must make this post a "vanity". If the Admin Mod considers this link, to be a problem (I'm not sure what the issue involves), hopefully they will remove it and you can find the article yourself via Google.
This comment is in response to an editorial titled "Stingy immigration policy stifles U.S. innovation", by By Lezlee Westine and Scott McNealy. The Italics are my summary of Westine and McNealy's comments, the balance of this post is my response.
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Re: Westine and McNealy spoke of arbitrary visa limits, and H1B processing delays...impacting innovation and opportunity for American companies.
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What's arbitrary about a visa limit? What's an appropriate number?
A U.S. Visa represents more than just a job. It represents freedom, a higher standard of living, and security unknown in most of the rest of the world. Those things are birthrights of Americans born in the USA, paid for by the sweat and blood of past generations of Americans. Do foreign nationals "deserve" or "have a right" carte blanche to the benefits of US citizenship? Do the rights of foreign nationals supercede those of American citizens?
A U.S. visa is also a tangible, economic benefit, not only to the foreign worker or immigrant who receives it, but to the company who controls that visa. A U.S. visa conditioned upon employment with a single agency or employer, by design or consequence creates the modern day equivalent of indentured servitude. The company will "buy" the employee for by sponsoring the visa, paying for transportation, and picking up the tab for other living expenses. In turn, the company pays the foreign professional worker as little as one-third the market rate for their services. The company controls that worker for three to five years. The company knows that the employee WILL NEVER leave that job. He or she will accept 60 or 70 hour work weeks. He will live two four to an apartment. He will work without sick leave or vacation benefits. And most certainly, he will not "job hop" for better economic opportunities or working conditions, because converting an H1B visa to another job is uncertain and difficult. To "body shops" (i.e. contract service agencies) and software development companies, hiring young, bright, capable professional workers for a fraction of what a free labor market would bear, with all the other benefits of slavery is very attractive, compared to hiring free Americans to do the same work.
"Young" is another key word. Technology professionals in their forties and fifties represent both an investment and liability. Health costs increase both because of the workers age and the likelihood that he or she supports a family. Older workers are less able to work 60 or 70 hour per week jobs, forgo vacations, or ignore outside family obligations. The single, 28-year-old professional from India is an attractive alternative to a older American worker.
Older workers frequently have backgrounds in older technologies. Companies have found it more profitable to outsource or "insource" (i.e. from overseas affiliates) their jobs to younger workers with current or newly acquired skills, than pay to retrain the older American workers. American workers who were once tops in their field because they sought out knowledge in current technologies can relearn as quickly as when they were young, but they'd have to be replaced by someone else while retraining. It's easier to leave the older American workers in place and retire them (i.e. layoff) with the technology they support, rather than handle the logistics of back-filling their positions and the expense of retraining them for future opportunities.
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Re: Westine and McNealy said that US immigration laws stifle innovation, cause the demise of American companies, or force them to move work off-shore.
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Those comments are insulting to American workers, and are a lie that simply makes no economic sense. If there were a gap in the supply of technology workers, simple laws of "supply and demand" would apply. Increased salaries would draw more college students to the field, and retain existing technology workers who are leaving mid-career. Why should a college student pay $30K to $180K tuition, lose four income years, and work 3-4 years as a low paid journeyman to earn a technology job, when someone overseas can be imported to replace him at a compensation rate less than that of many trades? If the pool of desirable college graduates is drying up at the same time technology companies experience a labor shortage, perhaps it's because the industry no longer represents a good investment for American workers.
Second, jobs move overseas for economic reasons other than supply problems. The higher regulatory and tax costs of labor in the U.S. make overseas labor attractive, and absent a change in U.S. law, that will continue regardless of the number of H1B visas issued in the U.S..
Third, some jobs will always be more vulnerable to off-shoring than others. "Cookie cutter", 24/7 technical support jobs can be performed efficiently overseas by foreign nationals who know little about the business or culture of the companies they support. However, business analysts, DBA's, and security related positions will remain supported in the U.S.A. (How many companies want to transfer their most sensitive financial, security, and company data to databases maintained in countries with neither the legal or security systems of the U.S.? Which CEO wants to inform the board that sensitive proprietary data was "lost in Calcutta"? How many companies will off-shore critical development projects 10,000 miles away from the control of the business managers who depend on the software. Yes, this can be and is being done, but is it wise?)
If American companies such as Intel, Sun, Microsoft, or Google are certain that a labor supply problem exists, the solution is not importing hundreds of thousands of young, foreign workers to supplant the natural supply of American workers. Instead, free ALL technology workers.
Sell H1B visas to individuals, not companies. Allow these workers a 90 day visa to find work in the U.S., and 90 days to remain in the U.S. between jobs. Rather than corrupt the visa system by allowing companies to have what is effectively "slave ownership" over foreign workers, require the individual foreign nationals to (a) sponsor themselves, (b) fund their trip, (c) post a substantial, refundable bond to prevent visa workers from becoming illegal aliens or failing to pay taxes, and (d) allow them the FREEDOM to manage their own visas. If they can find better work every third month, let them job hop, as long as they pay taxes, and accurately report their status to the INS and IRS.
But don't forget the American professionals, as they need freedom too. The repressive IRS laws that prevent a individual worker from simple hanging out a shingle, and marketing his labor to the highest bidder, also rob America from the services of some of it's brightest minds. Not every worker wants to work 50 to 70 hours a week for Computer Sciences Corporation, EDS, or SUN. However, contractors rarely complain about such working conditions. Their contract rate simply reflects it.
The H1B, L, and other visa programs are a sledgehammer for employers to use against American technology workers, and a cage to control foreign immigrants. It's an immoral system, it's anti-capitalist, and it's destroying America's technology work force.
The U.S. does not need a more liberal worker Visa program for professionals to ensure an adequate supply of technology professionals. Congress needs to create a level playing field between foreign nationals and American workers by ending company visa sponsorship AND IRS "safe harbor" restrictions on individual workers. Remove the constraints, let the open market determine compensation, and American companies will find an endless supply of top-level technology professionals. Most of them will be U.S. citizens.
SFS
I'd be cool with that. As it is, the large companies just keep these people as "the bench" to be used for temporary development. It's like hiring scabs that have to live on the factory floor or starve.
There has to be a maximum of how many legal visa's are passed out.
There has to be consideration as to whether we have the infrastructure to support X amount of additional people.
Mexico didn't care if we had the infrastructure in place to support as many as the Illegal aliens that just keep flooding in. 10-20 million people is outrageous and than add legal immigrants, recipe for diaster.
Especially because the illegals bring in disease, and are leeches getting welfare benefits.
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