Posted on 06/18/2007 5:53:11 PM PDT by calcowgirl
IT professionals criticize a law firm's video play-by-play description on how to circumvent the PERM process in favor of H-1B visas.
YouTube bites again. A law firm's attempt to get positive exposure for an immigration law conference by posting it on You Tube backfired when an organization that's been tough on H-1B visas and offshore outsourcing copied it and made a controversial video of its own. In the original video, posted by the firm Cohen & Grigsby from a May 15 conference, an attorney is shown advising attendees on how to meet the minimum requirements of advertising a job to U.S. candidates so that a foreign worker can more easily be hired. The firm's conference dealt with the U.S. government's labor certification requirement for foreign workers, the first step in helping them obtain green cards. The law requires that an employer prove there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a permanent job being offered before hiring a non-citizen.
In one 10-minute segment of the conference video, a panel of lawyers are shown discussing Program Electronic Review Management (PERM), an electronic labor certification system the government put in place two years ago to reduce certification to under 60 days. It was that portion of the video lambasted by the Programmers Guild, an organization of IT professionals that is staunchly protectionist against the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign workers both onshore and offshore.
The PERM process requires that an employer post a job in at least three places and allow 30 days for job candidates to respond for the employer to review resume. If no interested and qualified U.S. workers respond, an employer can instantly and electronically apply for a foreign worker's labor certification.
In the video, a Cohen & Grigsby attorney advises attendees that posting the job at an employer's Web site and with a local newspaper is usually enough to fill the minimum requirement, if the newspaper also posts the job online.
Another attorney, Lawrence Lebowitz, adds, "We're going to try to find a place [to advertise] where we are complying with the law and hoping, and likely, not to find qualified and interested worker applicants." A different firm attorney mentions less desirable methods that are more likely to pull in qualified and interested workers, including job fairs, online job sites like Monster.com, campus recruitments, and job placement firms.
In its YouTube video, the Programmer's Guild accuses the firm of using fake job ads to fulfill the PERM process. "These ads constitute fraud on American job seekers," says the organization in its text leading into the video.
Contacted at his Pittsburgh office the afternoon of June 18, Lebowitz said he was reviewing the matter with other partners in the firm and declined comment at this time.
The law firm removed the conference video sometime between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern daylight time on June 18.
Now maybe some of the Left leaning Democrat supporting computer programmers in LALA land will see the light and fight the immigration give away going on in Congress.
Good point. Didn't think of it that way.
Sounds like a sweet deal for the employers. Nice!
ping
Saw you both on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1852060/posts
and thought you might be interested.
If you are interested in the illegal immigration and AMNESTY Bill issue, watch the video. You'll be pi##ed.
Thanks for the ping. You’re right...I’m livid.
THIS is why laissez-faire, libertarian, free-market capitalism does not and cannot work over the long term. The corporate entity will do anything — anything — to gain an advantage of its competitors. Borders, culture, civilization itself — all are grist for the corporate mill. Unregulated, the capitalist knows no loyalty except to the bottom line.
PING!
Lawrence m. Lebowiz is a CRAPitalist. His grandfather must be very proud of him.
2. Google/Youtube is flagrantly disseminating information used in a conspiracy to commit a crime. In fact, this is a crime which IT firms like Google benefit from. RICO anyone?
“Which is funny cuz that’s where the middle class works, and whose stock the middle class owns. The market will dictate. They’re not trying to kill the middle class. Just trying to keep costs down.”
They are trying to fudge next quarters numbers so they will get a bigger bonus. Eventually they will lay off enough people to kill the middle class. Most of the companies doing this are profitable to start with. They do it out of greed.
In fairness to Arnold, didn’t he become an American citizen years ago?
I’m an IT professional and strongly against hiring H1B’s as long as a single engineer can’t find a job, but let’s be honest, and not loose with the facts like the liberals.
The biggest outrage is not the one committed by the law firm, but rather the complicity of our very own worthless and useless federal government—everyone understands that “enforcement” of U.S, immigration laws is virtually nonexistent
######
100% spot-on correct assessment of the problem!
yeah, i agree they are under pressure to deliver quarterly numbers. labor is usually the biggest cost. from their standpoint, why wouldn't they? In fact, as long as the competition does it, they have to do it to survive. I dont see it as greedy to use cheaper labor if you can get it. and the GOP stands for the free market, right? So what are we gonna do? Become democrats? organize? for me, i got out of the corporate game. i used them before they could use me. now i work for myself in a field hindus simply can't handle.
“THIS is why laissez-faire, libertarian, free-market capitalism does not and cannot work over the long term. The corporate entity will do anything — anything — to gain an advantage of its competitors. Borders, culture, civilization itself — all are grist for the corporate mill. Unregulated, the capitalist knows no loyalty except to the bottom line.”
I don’t agree. The individuals making these decisions are not doing what is best for their company. They are doing what is best for themselves. Everything in the public sector is about next quarters numbers. These individuals will do anything to improve those numbers which will then improve their bonus. Its greed.
Free-market capitalism does work but what we have is not a free market. The govt of India is subsidizing their companies to come here and take our business and jobs back to India. Those companies would not have had the capital otherwise. Further OSHA, EPA, Unions, oppressive govt regulations make it much more expensive and difficult to do business in the USA.
And to think President Bush swallows the "jobs Americans won't do" crap, hook, line and sinker.
>>>And to think President Bush swallows the “jobs Americans won’t do” crap, hook, line and sinker.<<<
President Bush isn’t swallowing anything. He is a self-serving deceiver.
ping
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