Posted on 07/05/2002 4:11:02 PM PDT by RogueIsland
MANHASSET, N.Y.—A Justice Department preliminary investigation to determine whether Sun Microsystems Inc. might have discriminated against U.S. citizens and favored foreign workers could spur a congressional reexamination of the H-1B visa program, legal experts say.
Guy Santiglia, a former Sun Microsystems hardware test engineer who lost his job when the company laid off 3,900 employees last November, filed a complaint with the Department of Justice claiming the company favored H-1B visa workers in the layoff while primarily cutting U.S. citizens from its ranks.
Sun (Santa Clara, Calif.) denied the allegation and claimed it based the layoff on both business needs and employee performance. "Work eligibility" and citizenship were not factors in the layoff, a spokeswoman said.
Nevertheless, she said, Sun is taking the complaint seriously and is providing information to the Department of Justice to expedite the investigation, which the San Jose Mercury News brought to light on June 23.
"Sun believes it has nothing to hide and that the company did not do anything wrong," the spokeswoman said.
The Justice Department has sent a letter to Sun asking for access to such documents as the company's immigration applications. Justice has 120 days from the date of filing to collect and review information related to the complaint, after which it will determine whether to launch an official investigation.
"Sun should probably be able to establish that it had legitimate business reasons" for retaining certain employees while letting others go, said management labor relations attorney George Barford of law firm Carlton Fields (Tampa, Fla.). But the implications of the case may extend beyond Sun, he said: It "may also stir interest in the work visa program by government officials because of the program's impact on unemployed workers in technology and because of increased security concerns regarding visas."
H-1B was created to allow U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with special skills that are purportedly scarce among the U.S. work force. It has been widely used by the high-tech industry, which lobbied to raise the cap on such visas to 200,000 per year in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
But the industry downturn and resultant rise in unemployment among technically skilled U.S. workers has increased sensitivities about the program. Some sources said Congress is considering whether the cap on H-1B visas should be lowered to its pre-2000 number of 65,000 per year.
Some sources believe the industry will fight to maintain the higher cap on H-1B work visas simply to avoid hiring Americans who command a higher wage.
Battle brewing?
John Miano, founder of the Programmers Guild (Summit, N.J.), representing U.S. programmers, foresees "another H-1B battle" in the coming months. He said interests within the IT industry are already issuing studies supporting their position that tech workers are still in short supply.
Santiglia, 36, who has an EE degree from Montana State University and several Sun professional certifications, worked for Sun full-time for four months and as a contractor for a year before that. He told EE Times that he filed the complaint after discussing the subject with several former Sun employees who exchanged e-mail with him on a Yahoo e-mail list dedicated to Sun alumni. But he said he was the only one who would sign his name to the Justice complaint.
The motivation, Santiglia said, was concern for those who had worked for Sun and had lost their houses or suffered other financial hardships as a result of the layoff. After the case gained publicity, Santiglia said, another former Sun employee told him he had filed a similar complaint with California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
The Sun spokeswoman said some H-1B visa workers had lost their jobs as a result of the layoff but would not say how many. She said H-1B visa workers constitute less than 5 percent of Sun's global work force, which currently totals 39,000. The ratio of H-1B workers would represent a higher percentage of the 32,000 employed by Sun in the United States.
The spokeswoman said Santiglia had visited Sun's campus "every day" to look through its immigration records, which companies are required to make available to the public upon request.
Santiglia said he visited Sun four times to view its books, which contained thousands of labor condition applications (LCAs) Sun had filed during 2001, he said. Companies file LCAs as a first step to applying to hire workers under the H-1B visa program.
My response is to now outsource all my software development offshore, and with great results thus far. There's nothing I would like better than to be forced by law to hire only US programmers, but until the braggarts climb down off their soapboxes, stop thumping their chests, and bring about some REAL political change, I'm happy to use offshore talent and remain competitive.
I would prefer to have an environment that compelled me (and, of course, my competitors) to hire US citizens AND provide good wages, however if "Poindexter" wants to go head-to-head with "Haji", then so be it.
Were I still a programmer I'd be joining this Programmer's Guild and making some real noise.
There are many a times I've fantasized Mr. Gates taking over the world and ridding us of Sun after turning on the caps lock when I wanted to hit the control key.
As a programmer, I have to admit that you, and the industry in general, is in the same catch-22 that manufacturing used to be. To remain competitive and stay in business, you have to hire cheap, and if you hire cheap, you kill off the domestic workforce. If you hire expensive, you go out of business and still kill of the domestic workforce. When this happened in manufacturing, people said, "no problem, we're moving to an information economy anyway, the workers can retrain." Well, now we've moved to an information economy and now those jobs too are being lost to cheap foreign labor.
What's the ultimate destiny of America, a nation of 250 million fast food joint employees?
I don't have an answer. It seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition.
It's common sense to get into a field where there's security. As long as Americans have to compete with cheaper (and more compliant) foreign labor in a particular trade, they'll find something else.
I don't have an answer. It seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition.
I have an idea, Let's get MANAGEMENT from out there. God knows they can't be worse tthan the current crop. In fact, they will have a better view of being treated like crap, and who knows, maybe reverse the stupid greedy MBA braindroppings that foul up everyone.
Are there any examples of regulations that US businesses need to follow when they hire workers, as opposed to overseas countries? Therein must lie the stifling factor. Unnecessary inspections? Unnecessary regulations? Minimum wage laws, etc?
Somebody please explaine to me the difference between a RepublicRat and a Demopublican again...
The answer is not to allow yourself to become a victim. You only go around one time in this world, so take the bull by the horns. If you can't program, then I say "get political" and stir things up a bit!
This post says it all. Of course there is going to be a shortage of Americans that commit themselves to a career with these hard-earned special skills when they are the first to become unemployed.
Those H1-Bs are killers! Post #8 says it more eloquently than I can.
Have you considered leaving this country alltogether?
The pure free market will move labor and production to the countries like China and India. And then the profits and ownership will go there also.
But before it happens, the political, legal infrastructure will be destabilised and free market will lose its fundation.
The nation is something more that collective efforst to secure legal framwork and protection for the free unrestrained use of the wealth by the owners.
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