Posted on 01/24/2009 9:24:29 AM PST by John Jorsett
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told Microsoft Corp. this week that U.S. citizens should get priority over H-1B visa holders as the software vendor moves forward on its plan to cut 5,000 jobs.
"These work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn," Grassley wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The letter asked Microsoft to detail the types of jobs that will be eliminated and how those cuts will affect the company's H-1B workers.
"It is imperative that in implementing its layoff plan, Microsoft ensures that American workers have priority in keeping their jobs over foreign workers on visa programs," Grassley added.
In some respects, it was a letter that Grassley, a vocal critic of the H-1B program, could have sent to any number of IT vendors that have announced layoffs recently. But Microsoft has been an outspoken proponent of increasing the annual cap on H-1B visas — primarily through its chairman, Bill Gates, who has spoken in support of raising the cap in speeches and in testimony before congressional committees, most recently last March. Grassley's letter noted as much.
Gates, in his appearance last year before the House Committee on Science and Technology, said that the current cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, plus an additional 20,000 set aside for foreign workers with advanced degrees from U.S. universities, "is arbitrarily set and bears no relationship to the U.S. economy's demand for skilled professionals."
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
She a jeenyus.
It was about the saddest thing I've seen, and a clear demonstration of how these workers are shamefully exploited.
Bingo! H1Bs are effectively an indentured servant program and this is what Bill Gates and others of ilk love about them.
I do have some sympathy for the H1B companies. After all, they do need to have some people on staff who can read...rather than just products of the American educational system.
Hey get with the program Grassley. As long as they lay off white males it’s ok!
If their employer's stated reasons for bringing H1Bs in in the first place are indeed valid, there can be no excuse for laying off every one of the H1B's before a single citizen is laid off.
correction - there is no excuse for not laying off every H1b before laying off a single American citizen.
That was back in the 80s when INS was actually doing things.
ping
A real question there. What's to be done about the current H-1b quotas, and those foreigners now in the process of applying to be part of the program? Seems the need for new participants should definitely be diminished.
American citizens needed elsewhere, will keep all H1Bs
Microsoft responds to Senator Grassley
Citizens needed by the military to protect our interests, says MS.
A few years ago I was one of only a couple of American engineers in a department in which all the other employees would put up with anything to avoid being sent back to their homelands. The manager was incompetent bordering on criminal; and I was in the position of being the only one who would stand up to him.
This issue doesn't get as much attention as the issue of high-tech jobs being earmarked for whoever will work for the lowest salary; but it's common enough that there's a term for it in the industry: "indentured servitude".
NO ONE has heard from him since.
(Paul Harvey voice)
And that little boy that nobody liked grew up to be...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Good day!
(/Paul Harvey voice)
The last thing Steve Balmer cares about is his US workers. And Bill Gates could care less too plus he’s too busy blowing his foundations money in Africa
Whatever Charles Grassley says will be ignored
Actually you would be in deep doo doo to lay off an American and keep an H-1b visa holder. if they both were doing the same are similar jobs.
I'd hope this is the way its being done.
I posted this some time ago but believe it is still relevant. I was a contract programmer who worked in a Carrollton, TX plant that were bringing in a lot of these people. One female had a husband working elsewhere and said that she'd be glad when his gig was over as he was working 60-70 hours a week. I said that at least the overtime (at straight time - $45 an hour) was good. She said that he was on salary and would only get a $500 "bonus" at the end of the gig. The H1B law says that you must pay the foreigner the same as a U.S. worker. The way the placement company got around that was to work their people these long hours but only charge the client for 40 hours. Not much of a decision as to which one would be hired.
Another guy said the company would take their passports and cram them in condos or homes like the illegals. They couldn't go anywhere else and were trapped at whatever job the company sent them to.
Lastly, since Microsoft hasn’t taken a single dollar of federal bailout money they don’t owe the Senator from Iowa any sort of explanation.
Thank you for showing your ignorance on the issue. Microsoft lobbies for INCREASING H-1B visas, even now in a poor economy.
So, since when is lobbying the same as taking taxpayer money?
But, really, let’s get to the point since nobody including you has bothered to read the story. Cuts were in sales, marketing, finance, legal, HR, R&D and IT. Now tell me: of the specialties mentioned, how many would you expect to be staffed by H1Bs?
But, really, let’s get to the point since nobody including you has bothered to read the story. Cuts were in sales, marketing, finance, legal, HR, R&D and IT. Now tell me: of the specialties mentioned, how many would you expect to be staffed by H1Bs?
R&D, IT, and maintenance.
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