American high-tech workers see threat

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.

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.

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."

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.

"stuck in the "I'm over qualified" syndrome"

This is a problem, and my research has not found one company offering retraining to the millions of American high-tech being replaced by non-citizens.
Although this has not yet worked for me, I suggest that your cover letter emphasize that your most recent experience as a mainframe security adminstrator is no longer a position with future prospects, but that you have excellent attention to detail, work ethic, typing skills, etc.
You might also try to relocate if that is an option for you. I should warn you, "local candidates only" is what I'm getting.
Once you do find a job, you might try to retrain at a local community college, depending on your interests. Or perhaps, if you have the resources, you could start your own business.
Please to vent your anger by sending e-mails or faxes to congress, the White House, RNC, etc. This website http://www.h1b.info/ has good info and activism. Be sure to look into the links under "Bookmarks" tab.

What about this, Georgia Freepers? Is this BS, or what?

Well, I'll say this: The Atlanta market has been pretty good even through these lean times. It took me about 2 months after I decided to get serious about looking for work to land a great job at a major multinational firm, making a fine wage and programming in C#.NET and Visual Foxpro.

I had lots of other prospects as well. Maybe it's just me, but Atlanta seems healthy (enough).

Also, I'd like to point out that 100% of my coworkers are employed.

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?

That's an interesting question. We will possibly see the answer soon, because it's the middle-class jobs that are being lost which pay the tax bills which hold up the welfare state

Somehow, I don't think the kind of people who riot when a trial verdict is not to their liking, will be too happy if the welfare checks suddenly stop coming. And anybody who expects the cops to be effective in controlling the resulting riots is a fool

Got ammo?

One question that comes to my mind is what kind of jobs will there be for educated and skilled Americans to replace the educated and skilled jobs going overseas? Does anyone have an honest answer?

Good question, but also, what kind of jobs will there be for those who are NOT educated and skilled? America has alwys been a place were anyone, educated or not, could have a very good life if you work hard and save your money. The american work ethic was all that was needed(education was just an added bonus to the american dream).

If labor is treated as a commodity and trade is free (no tariffs) the comparative advantage principle will lead to the replacement of American educated workers by Indians, Chinese working from their home countries.

A main reason I am so opposed to the temporary visas is because there is no free labor market.

For example, if IT outsourcing is creating a labor demand in India and China, two things should happen as a result - rising salaries in those countries for IT workers and immigration of IT workers from the US to India and China. For a true free market, an IT worker making enough for a certain quality of life here would be willing to move to make a living elsewhere in the world if the labor market was moving there; AND the country would allow his immigration. Neither is really true. In addition, most of these "low wage" countries have tightly controlled economies with subsidized and socialistic protections aimed solely to take advantage and undercut certain industries.

The ONLY choice most IT (experienced) workers have is to retrain in another (non-targeted) profession for the same quality of life, or lower his quality of life to take a job that does not require significant skills/education/training.

I strongly believe the IT imbalance created before the tech bust/recession was based on faulty information and policy.^{1, 2} I plan on making Sen. Specter pay for being an accomplice, and not being in the forefront of fixing it.

What about this, Georgia Freepers? Is this BS, or what?

From Jim Wooten's column:

Gov. Sonny Perdue is off to Europe in search of new business for Georgia. If new business costs taxpayers as much as the former governor promised DaimlerChrysler, $320 million, we're too broke to buy it.

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