Posted on 06/22/2003 12:48:06 AM PDT by sarcasm
WASHINGTON -- Already short on jobs, some American high-tech workers are mobilizing against a growing threat that they will be replaced by foreign workers arriving on a once-obscure visa.
Across the country, U.S. workers who once protested that H-1b visa holders were displacing them are now focusing on the growing use of the less-restrictive L-1 visa to bring bargain-priced foreign labor to major corporations.
Even in the sinking U.S. job market after the high-tech bubble went bust, the number of L-1 visas has risen and is now estimated at 325,000 temporary workers, who are allowed to stay between five and seven years.
The most controversial of those visas go to a handful of consulting firms based in India, where high-tech workers are plentiful, English is spoken and salary expectations are low. Once transferred here, these L-1 employees are contracted out to run computer operations for dozens of major companies.
Many multinational companies argue that they depend on the L-1 to bring new technologies and new operations to the United States. Among those who have "outsourcing" contracts are Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Siemens Industries, in addition to state operations in New Mexico, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
As the Indian companies expand to new clients, they are leaving a trail of layoffs and increasingly vocal U.S. workers.
Software engineer Judy Shaw learned late last month that her entire unit of more than 30 workers at Cutler-Hammer, a Pittsburgh division of Cleveland-based Eaton Corp., was to be terminated by year's end.
The company announced that Tata Consultancy Services, one of the largest of the Indian companies operating here, would be taking over her team's projects. A senior company executive announced the contract, adding that it would save $1 million a year, Shaw said.
Gary Klasen, a spokesman for Eaton, said last week that hiring Tata was based on more than money. "I'm not speaking about cheaper labor," he said. "I'm speaking about an overall goal to remain competitive in quality, cost and technology."
Klasen said that Eaton was rehiring some of the high-tech workers for other posts "if their skills and capabilities match the jobs that are available."
Shaw was not among the few who qualified. And experiencing her second layoff in as many years has spurred her into activism.
"I am newly naturalized" as an American citizen, said Shaw, who was born in the Philippines and who now telecommutes from her home in Justin, Texas. "Now that I have a voice, I'm going to speak up."
She is among a growing number of high-tech workers who are telling their stories on Internet sites, knocking on congressional doors, organizing groups and planning demonstrations.
Glenn R. Jackson, a laid-off tech worker from Dawson, Ga., last week launched the Internet-based National Association for the Employment of Americans, with partners on both coasts, to build a grass-roots campaign against work visa programs.
"A lot of people are individually impacted but not organized enough to put pressure on the powers that be," said Jackson, who spent 20 years in information technology before being laid off more a year and a half ago by the Siemens Energy and Automation facility in Alpharetta.
Since then, Jackson has been contacting fellow tech workers, chiefly via the Internet, helping to circulate petitions and sending information to legislators.
Message received
The message is beginning to be heard in the nation's capital.
Prompted by workers laid off by a Siemens facility at Lake Mary in his Florida district, Rep. John Mica concluded that the expanded use of the L-1 "was a gray area of law," his spokesman Gary Burns said. Mica, a Republican, became the first lawmaker to introduce legislation aimed at curbing the L-1.
Rep. Rosa L. DeLaro, a Democrat whose state of Connecticut has been a target for foreign outsourcers, followed last week by announcing that she will offer a bill, as well.
Also last week, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, announced he would hold a hearing this summer "so that we can better understand both the many concerns about misuse of the L-1 visa as well as the legitimate, important role the L-1 visa can play in promoting American businesses in our global economy."
Although Chambliss stopped short of saying the law should be rewritten, a fellow Georgia Republican, Rep. Nathan Deal, said Congress should close "a big loophole" in the L-1 program.
The Homeland Security Department, which oversees work visas, has ordered a probe into whether bringing in high-tech workers to provide basic services for other corporations is an abuse of the L-1 program -- originally designed to allow international companies to bring their top managers and a few company experts to assist their U.S. divisions.
"My understanding of L-1 is that no, that is not a legitimate use" if the workers are outsourced to another company, said Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for the department's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Further, Bentley said, the L-1 visa holder must be an intracompany transfer of a worker with "special knowledge" of the company's products, management or procedures. "We're not talking about people who are just Microsoft Windows experts," he said.
For employers, the L-1 has growing appeal because it is far less regulated than the H-1b worker visa, which requires certification that American workers will not be displaced as well as pay that matches the prevailing wage. Moreover, the number of H-1b visas per year is capped. Starting next October, the limit for H-1bs will go down from 195,000 to 65,000 annually.
L-1 visas have none of those restrictions and no cap.
Girish Surendran, resident manager of immigration and human resources for Tata, or TCS as the company's American division is called, defended his company's use of the L-1.
"It's a misconception is that TCS contracts employees to other companies or to third parties," he said. "When we go to a total outsourcing contract with any company ... the company has selected us to do the job because of the expertise that TCS carries with us."
Clinton a backer
Tata, which has more than 50 offices in the United States, also has a key supporter in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who claimed credit for encouraging the company to open an office in Buffalo. Asked about the company's practice of replacing U.S. workers, Clinton's office provided statements from the company promising to provide jobs in the Buffalo region.
Although the Tata executive declined to say how many L-1 visa holders are on its payroll, two other Indian outsourcing companies report increasing use of the visa in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Infosys Technologies Ltd. said it had 1,760 L-1 visa holders, up from 425 in March 1999. Wipro Ltd. said it has 1,150 workers with L-1s now, compared with 321 two years ago.
The tech contractors appeared to have little support from Daryl Buffenstein, an Atlanta immigration lawyer who is also general counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
"No one should defend the use of the L-1 visa as a job shop," he said. "If that's being done, then that is hurting everybody."
However, Buffenstein also said immigration lawyers were "working very, very hard to make sure that whatever happens" to the L-1 visa, "it doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water."
Buffenstein says foreign companies in Georgia, for example, have brought an estimated $19 billion in manufacturing and facilities investments that have transformed Atlanta into an international city.
"The story of the L-1 in Georgia is one of investment, one of jobs, one of employment, one of money," he said. "It's a story of how this state has built itself into a haven for international companies."
These companies have brought in only a "tiny percentage" of foreign workers, while hiring thousands of Georgians, he said.
You're (understandably) pessimistic about this. Don't fool yourself. The fact that America produced these jobs in the first place is not a coincidence. We're better at this stuff. And in ways the bean counters don't quite understand yet. We'll come out ok in the end. But the rocky road from here to there will be a b*tch.
I hope you're right. I fear we don't have a generation of Americans who know how to deal with real hardship. Haven't had since the greatest generation has started to die off.
... that are under 30 years old and willing to accept less than $50,000 per year for an 80 hour work week...
You just forgot to finish the quote.
FReegards, SFS
Bad news … plumbers and security guards can easily be replaced by downloaded Indians.
And Democrats are holding this issue in their front pocket, off the Republican radar screen. Wait until the Presidential Candidate is selected and the campaign is started in earnest … This issue is a winner for the Democtrats, especially if the “uncaring” Republicans do nothing.
In general IT workers are conservatives and are not part of the Democrat constituency. See which side Hillary is on and she and McCauliff control their party. I dont know if there is a real solution because the complete movement of jobs offshore is in full swing. Bringing l1s here is expensive and is not considered the best solution. I think the job losses will accelerate even moreso.
Got any suggestions for those in that boat? Maybe law school? (We never seem to have too many lawyers)
No generation learns to deal with hardship until they actually have to. We'll come through ok. Don't let "greatest generation" PR fool you. They didn't go through depression and war by choice.
Law school is a good choice, add some Chinese and Hindi language courses too.
They had a different kind of society ---for one they didn't have the massive welfare system we now have, people were more self-reliant. We've got huge numbers of people now who have never or almost never worked ----what happens when they don't get their welfare check?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.