Senator Asks Microsoft to Lay Off Foreigners Ahead of Americans

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[Sub-Driver]

Senator Asks Microsoft to Lay Off Foreigners Ahead of Americans Jason Mick (Blog) - January 26, 2009 11:07 AM

A prominent Republican Senator has some controversial suggestions for Microsoft on its job cuts

Faced with the wrath of its shareholders after missing its earnings targets badly, Microsoft announced that it would be laying off 5,000 employees, a sharp reverse of years of hiring and growth. The layoffs are starting to be announced this week.

Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, where Microsoft has a significant presence, wrote a letter to Microsoft with suggestions about the layoff. In his letter, he states, "I am concerned that Microsoft will be retaining foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American employees when it implements its layoff plan."

Sen. Grassley is a prominent member of the Senate, as the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. His stance is that Microsoft should layoff foreign workers on visas before laying off American citizens. He argues this will help protect the U.S. economy.

[grey_whiskers]

You are correct.

Consider yourself *highly* commended, sir.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

You might enjoy this vanity and this vanity.

Cheers!

[VRW Conspirator]

It is dangerous for politicians to start telling private companies whom they should hire or fire. If Grassley has a beef with h1b workers, he should push for lower h1b quotas, not browbeat individual companies.

Bimgo! The Senator should threaten to take the H1B away!

[Kimberly GG]

I wonder how many who would disagree with you (for whatever reason they give), if they are, in fact, closet supporters of illegal immigration/amnesty and cheap slave labor? Frankly, I’m seeing a running theme among more than a few. Some of us have concluded that those who always seem to find themselves on the side of illegals either employee them, are married/related to them, or are them.

[glorgau]

Grassley is pissed because they’re stopping development of a data center in Iowa. In short, he’s being a freaking hypocrite.

Any port in a storm.

[AdmSmith]

There are at least three energy strategies for data centers: using outside air for free cooling, server virtualization and automated cooling management. Why not relocate to Alaska and lower the energy bill for cooling.

[Doohickey]

The idea is (I think) to stage resources close to the customers that are going to use them. The availability of sufficient bandwidth and robust network infrastructure is a factor as well.

[Kimberly GG]

F.Y.I....don’t know if this stimulus is a ‘done deal’ yet, but I received this from Roy:

E-Verify moving to House floor — Change your calling immediately — Everything is moving fast

DEAR FRIENDS,

Do NOT make any more calls to the Rule Committee Members (unless they are from your district).

We need you to immediately phone your own U.S. Representative (even if he/she usually is pro-illegal-immigration). 202-224-3121

It now looks like the whole U.S. House is going to take up the stimulus bill this afternoon. We now expect the Rules Committee to issue rules for debate that will allow the E-Verify provision to be included (see explanation below).

Please go to your Action Buffet corkboard and click on the phone note. It will provide talking points to make it easier to make the phone call. And it names your Representative and provides alternative phone numbers to call.

Whatever the Rules Committee does, there is likely to be some kind of vote on whether to allow governments and businesses getting the trillion dollars of stimulus money to hire illegal aliens.

There may be a point of order on the floor to strip the requirement to use E-Verify to keep illegals out of the jobs. There may be an amendment to do that. Or if the Rules already stripped E-Verify, there may be an amendment to put E-Verify back in.

Your job is to let your own Representative know that his/her constituents expect this bill to explicitly require E-Verify to make sure all new jobs go to Americans and legal immigrants already here.

You all did an incredible job this morning. At the beginning, we were hearing that phone calls were running 50/50 on whether to allow stimulus money to be used to hire illegal aliens. Now, it sounds like the Rules Committee was absolutely overwhelmed by anti-illegal phone calls.

You must make this happen in your own Representative’s office immediately. We don’t know when the vote may occur. It could be tomorrow. It could be this afternoon. Time is of the essence.”