Crisis continues: US may abolish H1-B visa...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

WASHINGTON: The H1-B visa on the chopping block again. A prominent anti- immigration lawmaker has introduced in the US Congress, a Bill that seeks to abolish the visa category that facilitates a large number of skilled Indian professionals take up jobs in the United States.

The move is certain to be opposed by US high-tech companies and many other lawmakers considering that H1-B visa cap is slated to brought down from its peak of nearly 200,000 per year in the year 2000 to its original level of 65,000.

But even that is too much for Congressman Tom Tancredo. Often described as a onetrick pony and a single-issue Congressman, Tancredo has campaigned relentlessly against both illegal and legal immigration. But as chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus now, his 15-line Bill aimed at eliminating all visas under H1-B category introduced this week goes further than he has done before at time when job loss in the United States has roused sentiments against white collar immigration.

...

Tancredo’s bill has been spurred by a campaign by US tech workers, who are losing jobs in increasing numbers through a combination of immigration, outsourcing and advancement of technical skills outside US, wage differentials and other factors.



http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=73500

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Love Bug]

2. Won't companies then just outsource more IT jobs?

Do H1-B visa holders get paid the same wages as other IT professionals at the same state-side office? I think the bigger problem is the outsourcing of IT jobs to India where workers are paid much less.

[northernsoul]

8. well, I'm getting out of IT

because I know that it's just a matter of time before my job ends up in the Phillipines.

I really like the foreign workers that I worked with, but the fact remains that I've been helping train them to do my job for about 20% of my pay once they go back to Manila.

[GOPHater]

58. Not paid the same

Typically, at least where I work, they are paid about 60-80% of what their U.S. counterparts are paid. The other problem, of course, is the movement of the jobs to off-shore. I'm a Colorado Dem and a database administrator, and I have to give the Republican Tom Tancredo credit for trying to do something about the loss of IT jobs in the U. S. It's shameful.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

28. Repeal H1B now, NAFTA tomorrow

I fully support legal immigration. I don't support corporations importing workers temporarily to drive down US wages. They won't even let the H1B stay in the country or bring their family - they are almost indentured servants.

I am also against US corporations being allowed to fire American workers and send jobs overseas - if companies want to hire workers in Communist China, let the CEOs move to China and become citizens there. The US is a free country, you're free to leave whenever you want.

This is exactly why I support Gephardt, Kucinich, Mosely-Braun, and Sharpton, and I oppose Lieberman, Kerry, Dean, and Graham.

[Frances]

3. 2 constiuents at my representative's town hall meeting

in Sunnyvale, Ca, last Saturday brought up the visa issue.

These 2 men were angry that so many techincal jobs in the Silicon Valley are held by non-citizens. One of the men said that the companies like to hire people on visas because they work for less.

No one at this town hall meeting brought up outsourcing. I am surprised that outsourcing of techincal jobs is not more of a campaign issue. I think Bush would be particularly vulnerable here as so much of his campaign money comes from corporations who do a lot of outsourcine.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

9. Unemployment Has Touched A Third Of Valley Households...

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Unemployment has touched the homes of more than one-third of Silicon Valley residents since the job market peaked in January 2001, according to a new survey.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2329315/detail.html

[htuttle]

4. There's really only one solution to this issue

UNIONIZE INDIA!

(and then after that, China, Indonesia, Latin America, Africa, etc...)

[Sentath]

11. *bleep*in' A

Globalization is an ongoing process. We the people (all of us, not just us) need to be out in front of it paving its way and making sure it works with us as partners, not tools.

[Lostnote03]

20. You Got That Right!!!

....Damned good observation

[Wapsie B]

23. Whoever tried to do such a thing

whould be "suicided" by Korporate Amerika. For capitalism to survive there must be a never ending source of cheap labor.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

29. Wobbly Kick!

http://www.iww.org/

[searchingforlight]

5. This is not going to solve the problem.

American industry wants these people because they are some of the most highly trained in the world and in GREAT demand. If they can't get them here, they will ship the jobs to them and open up tech offices there.

What is another solution?

[OrAnarch]

10. Come on now...

Highly trained? What a joke. Speaking as someone who should be in the tech field if they hired American workers who graduate with Honors from a major Universities, I, along with my graduates, could go head to head with any of them, but we wont take 25 grand a year to do it. That is the issue.


Not sure when they all of a sudden got so much smarter than us, or their computer science courses became oh so much better. But Im sure they are happy working for peanuts and the companies are happy paying them that.

[w4rma]

13. Bingo, OrAnarch. You hit the nail on the head, IMHO. (n/t)

[MrMonk]

16. I join in saying "Bushwah"

IT's preference, as it has always been, is for workers who are cheap, easy to dispose of, and just good enough to get the job done.

[MindPilot]

21. Since when are IT people "in great demand"?

since about 1999. Now the federal government is just helping major corporations fuck the American worker.

[Sushi_lover]

6. Hi Tech sector will take a big hit

H1-B is how we keep these workers here after they get their degrees.

[dfong63]

49. oh, like there aren't enough qualified americans to fill those jobs

[displacedtexan]

7. these are the techies

who understand how scanning machines work.
imagine the grocery store lines without them.

[w4rma]

12. Abolish it! It only serves to export our resources out of the country.

IMHO, it's a national security issue. We don't need to be exporting our expertise, we need home grown expertise that will stay in America.

Big buisness uses this thing to hire employees that they can pay well under the going rate for U.S. citizens. Small buisness doesn't have the overseas connections to hire folks with this so it only serves to give big buisness even more power over the start-ups.

[AliceWonderland]

15. Sure

So will we abolish our importing of cheap goods made in sweatshops, and deal with the economic fallout of that? Just curious.

[w4rma]

17. It would be an economic boom, IMHO, since manufacturing would come back

to America. And manufacturing towns (like the one I grew up in which now has among the highest unemployment in the state of VA since all the factories closed down after NAFTA) will begin to prosper again. And maybe we'll see some more small buisness manufacturing since they can then hire folks in the city of their buisness instead of opening an office in Mexico.

[AliceWonderland]

18. Boom

It would be a "boom!" alright. And in the meantime, an economy built, at this point, on nothing but paper-shuffling and consumer debt would collapse. The point is, production capacity does not miraculously change. Infrastructure and supply chains do not suddenly resurrect themselves. Where has this happened on a macro scale, ever? Would inputs still come from developing countries? That's the same old same old for an international economy. Plus, corporations that have built themselves on offshore havens and cheap labour in Indonesia won't simply say, "hey, let's go back to the rust belt, boys!" This has been coming on for a long time.

I find it funny when folks with a kitchen full of plastic from China, a closet full of fabrics from Indonesia, and a living room full of electronics from Malaysia complain that Mexicans are taking their jobs. Talk about missing the larger problem.

[w4rma]

34. You want me to complain about American jobs being sent to China

, Malaysia and Indonesia? Okay. I don't like that either. Just because I don't list every blasted country that imports American jobs doesn't mean I support their importing our jobs.

Like I said before. Small buisnesses can't go offshore. Big entrenched ones can. This creates a nearly impossible hill for start-ups. We need to keep the jobs in America to keep the resources in America and to keep American competition strong. Big buisness has gotten lazy and doesn't want to impove their buisnesses, instead they want to lobby our government for laws to make it harder for their competitors and harder for their employees.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. When I can FIND

plastic gadgets from the US, clothes from the US, and electronics from the US, I buy them, but it's getting almost impossible to FIND manufactured goods that are made in the US.

[Kamika]

14. THIS IS GREAT!!!!!!!!

Anyone who has read economy etc knows how usa sucks in all IT specialists etc from india pay them crappy salarys (compared to what a american would get) thereby both making an american jobless and also stealing a valuable resource from the specialists homecountry.

[ramapo]

19. About time

This is long overdue but probably too late. Offshoring is now in full swing. H1B holders are voluntarily leaving to go back to India to work on the projects being outsourced. They actually do better financially because they are at the (often times) long row of vendors reselling their expertise. The visa holder gets a relatively low wage compared to the price to the hiring company. The overall cost is still less than hiring a citizen as an employee.

Remember the golden corporate rule put in place during the '80s...."We don't want no stinkin' employees".

[Adamocrat]

22. Anecdote...

My partner (who is a senior software engineer for a fairly large tech company now) worked for Lucent during the dot-com-boom (before the dot-com-bomb). There were five Indian H1-B workers in his department, and all five lived together, commuted together, ate together, and got payed about 25% what the American techies were being paid.

These guys all came from the same company that outsources them, and they were all pretty disposable to the company. The Indians were very thrifty and very inquisitive, learning everything they could from various CBT courses their outsourcing company offered. Practically everything they made went back to India to take care of their families. Since rent was split five ways, along with food and transport, they actually managed to send quite a bit back. That money was to help their families and help others in their family to become H1-B also.

I can't say I have a real personal opinion on this. I'm not pleased with Americans losing jobs or being passed over for such cheap labor. I can see how the H1-B immigrants benefit, and I can see how the companies benefit. What I can't see is how this is good for Americans?

Would anyone who SUPPORTS such immigration please tell us something about your position?

Cheers,
-A

[shanti]

24. i've seen a huge increase in east indians

in sacramento. professional east indian men, that is. we have a fairly large east indian population anyway, but i have definitely noticed an uptick in the last 2 years or so.

[GregW]

25. One thing I notice on the continuous "Bash Indian workers" threads ..

I that almost no one who 'contributes' to these threads works in IT. It's all heresay and FOAF-lore.

My take on the issue:

Companies will hire the best workers they can within the budget they have allocated. Companies will not hire a sub-standard person because they cost less. If that person happens to be Indian, here on an H1-B, and is better than all the US applicants, then that person will probably be hired. To pay a person less because of their sex, nationality, skin color, etc is discriminatory.

Think of it this way ... if you need an operation, you know how much it costs and you pay to have the best person with the appropriate qualifications perform that operation. You don't "cut costs" by bringing in a doctor who's "almost" good enough.

I challenge each of you in the replies above to provide your credentials and specific examples of how an H1-B was hired by a company because they "cost less".

My credientials: IT for 23 years, Silicon Valley 16 years, last three positions as either a Director or VP of IT.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

30. Of course you think that, you're management

As someone who has worked in IT for 10 years in non-management positions, I say you are wrong.

First of all, no one is bashing Indian workers, I'm certainly not going to as I have worked with many Indians on H1B and became friends with a few.

Second, companies are not hiring H1B visas that are better qualified, they are hiring for the same level as Americans, just paying less. When they are done with them, or have successfully driven wages down, they send them back to India. I've seen this happen over and over again, and I'd bet any of your anecdotes are exceptions that prove the rule.

Third, if a company is going to outsource, I say we outsource the company. We'll just revoke their corporate charter. If the CEO doesn't like it, let him move to India and start a business there, under Indian law. Or Communist China, that seems popular with management now a days.

It's a free country, you can leave whenever you want.

[OrAnarch]

37. Of Course I Don't work in IT...

...if I could get an IT interview based off my impressive, yet entry-level position (being a new graduate), than perhaps I wouldn't waste my whole day 'contributing' to these threads, but that, sending out resumes, and doing piece software work is the sad story of my life for the last year and a half since graduating. Most likely no one here is involved in IT because there are no jobs available for qualified Americans, entry-level or higher, and it would be a waste of money paying us our 'standard of living' wages when they can shell out a few bucks to Indian workers.

You should know our state (Oregon) IT sector is hurting, along with every other one.

If Im wrong you welcome to offer me a job or at least an interview anytime. In the meantime, I want my country back!

[cantwealljustgetalong]

47. Director or VP of IT?...

then you are part of the problem, not the solution...

[Kenneth ken]

48. what a crappy argument

with all due respect,

on the one hand you give a nod to the idea of hiring "the best workers they can within the budget"
then you turn around and write
"you pay to have the best person with the appropriate qualifications"

so which is it boss? Do you focus on best person or within the budget?


I tend to like the Indians I work with, and they tend to be competent; on the other hand, they tend to documnet badly, ignore standards, and slam projects in with insufficient testing (we'll fix those problems later.)

As far as the testing issue, I am not often privy to whether the timelines determined by managemtn are realistic, or not; so I don't know if it is fair to criticize programmers for that.

The company I work for outsources to India, and also imports programmers to assist with projects in the US. I suspect that if H1-B visa go away, the company would just shift to a higher level of outsourcing.


22+ years in IT.

[GregW]

50. Person or budget?

Both.

If the person is not qualified, do not hire.

Of the pool of qualified candidates, choose the best candidate you can afford.

It's pretty simple.

[Kenneth ken]

55. try again

so, of the pool of licensed DOCTORS you choose your surgeon based on cost? They're all licensed, so they must have the same skill level; therefore you go for the cheapest one, right?

Please, make up your mind.


your words: You don't "cut costs" by bringing in a doctor who's "almost" good enough.

and again, your words: choose the best candidate you can afford

[Virginian]

52. Unemployed IT worker.

This is one specialty where experience does not get you anywhere. Having training in the latest and greatest is what gets the job. This does not bode well for those who have been in the business for a while.

I have been in IT for over 20 years.
I started out working on Dec equipment. Dec is gone now. I had to start over.

I started over with Oracle Financial Applications. Each day of classes costs $500. Fortuanately, the company was paying for it. Company also brought in H1B workers for its conversion. Most were nice people, but some of the young men had a problem with my being a woman. The men with attitudes would not work with me. I asked a question and they said they would tell a man in my department but wouldn't tell me. That kind of sexual discrimination is supposed to be illegal in this country.

Many of the IT employees were laid off from that department after our conversion was completed.

I went on to the next company fully trained. The new company wouldn't pay to keep my training current. When the contract was lost to H1-B company I was laid off with outdated skills.
Students in India pay $50 to Oracle Corp for the same training that cost me $500. I can't afford to keep on taking classes at my own expense.

As far as meeting minimum requirements, the director was dictating that. We had a deadline we had to meet. If we had to write a report. The program had to run. It did not have to give the correct numbers. That could be dealt with in a software change later.

I agree that Indians do not document well. I have not been able to follow the incomplete or misleading documentation I have seen.
I have also seen an H1-B put code into production bypassing the standard procedures without any record of it being applied and no documentation of why or what it does.

I have seen an unproductive Indian who smoozed with the right clients in an onsite situation. He had them convinced that he almost single handedly did most of the work when he really did practically none of it. He would talk like he knew how to do things and mess up everything for the rest of the team because the product was not designed to do what he had told the client it could do. I could practically count on him to tell me the opposite of what was true.
He had the client convinced to hire the Indian.

My situation now is that half of the companies are hiring H1-B or offshore outsourcing the other half want to find someone who already has a clearance so they don't have to pay for it. I was thinking of getting a job screening passengers at the airport so I could get the clearance. Then I could get back into IT.

My work experience with Indians has generally been positive. The examples I have cited are the few bad apples. My non-work experiences have all been positive. They make wonderful neighbors.

[TecnoCrat]

51. Lemme put it this way.

I was laid off from a very good IT job, Help Desk Internal, and doing forecasting/scheduling for a 200+ seat call center.

This was two weeks ago. Turns out it's been in the works since November. Anyone who knew was threatened with firing if they said a word to anyone about anything.

I'm now collecting unemployment, fighting to get my one week's severance (for three years of work), and struggling to keep my house that I bought less than a year ago.

The outsourced cener is in Houston, staffed by total incompetents, we know, we've talked to them. The contracts now being handled are being cancelled as a result of this, and the company stands to lose millions.

Why, you ask, did they do it? To save money over the quarter in salaries.

The field techs, who work on YOUR pc's under warranty, can't call and get good help anymore. Lowers the value of your machine and warranty, can destroy your business, and my former employer feels it's ok, because it saves them 4 dollars an hour per person.

I am SO tired of the corporate culture in the US. I need to get out of IT, but I love computers, and I have to pay the bills. I don't have much choice.

[CivilRightsNow]

53. Whatever

Greg, I always read your responses to this and it seems like a replay of trying to soothe your own guilt on this issue.

A great majority of the people that contribute to these threads do (or did, would probably be more accurate) work in the IT field. It's not all FOAF lore.. these are facts that are hitting a great number of people in your country quite hard. I mean, think about it. 1/3 of silicon valley residents have been hit by unemployment. That is huge.

Companies will hire the best labor that they can get at the cheapest prices. The days of people not being completely expendible are over. Expecially you tech managers. You love to think that you can bring someone in with a "learning curve" and presto whammo.. with a little more training, a little more hand holding, a little bit of a sacrifice in customer satisfaction and service.. you can come out of the whole thing with a nice little cubicle worker who never scans in or out when their "schedule" says they should. Ive worked all over the IT field from the Baby to the biggest bell.. cisco, redback, efficient, too many dot coms to list.. Luckily I consult and try as you might IT cant throw away all of the logic and brains yet. Maybe you work at some kind of amazing company. Or maybe you tell yourself whatever it takes to get to sleep at night. I dont know. But I do know that your first and second statements totally conflict with each other. We shouldnt be cutting costs with "almost" good enough workers. But we are.

My credentials? CCNP, MCSE +I ( I could go on with all of the Novell, Sun, etc certs), 12 years experience, 8 management. Partner of privately owned design and development company and independant consultant specializing in techology and productivity management. I now try to help companies, with managers like you, see the error of their ways and the benefits of contribiting to the local economy by hiring american workers.

So you want some specific examples. Let's start with the last dot com I worked for, a pretty large company that produces online meeting software. I came in as the head of their Technical support department. After working with both an indian and mandarin contractor for 2 years to get an excel file to import to an oracle database and still having no finished solution the company finally realized that we would have to spend the money and get it done right. After bringing in 3 qualified american programmers, the problem was solved in less then 3 months.

At the same company, in our tech support department, sortly before I was hired -- they brought in 5 indian H1B visa holders to work in our offices in San Jose. These were high level support positions. Between those 5 workers, I averaged 20-40 complaints from customers per week. They felt that the support reps didnt even speak the same language and got tired of repeating the same steps with no resolution. There was not upper level logic present. However, when we moved the workers into tier 1 support, the complaints decreased significantly.

I could really go on and on. Now, my design and development company uses elance.com as a resource. We basically play repairman for database projects that have been completely screwed up by subcontractors in india, pakistan, etc. I deal with this ineptitude on a daily basis and I challenge you to take a gander at elance.com. Review the businesses listed and the reviews that are generally recieved by these contractors. See how many times you read about communications problems, logic flow and worse. Im not saying that every indian, mandarin, non american born citizen is inept. Im simply saying that you have to look at your end user and target market... if your technology person cannot understand them then they are worthless to your business and taking jobs away from people who can.

You said that this situation can be equated to a doctor in a life saving position.. but that is BS. Most people dont cut corners with their life. But look in any paper, on any news show, even in any business meeting and you will see that a business will cut, grind and demolish any corner that it possibly can.

[CivilRightsNow]

54. Speak of the devil

I just recieved this email after writing my last response to Greg. I thought it was particularily relevant.

"Hello.

I'm web-programmer from Ukraine. I seek freelance work and
I can agree to a much lower salary than the one in your country.
My hourly rate is $14.

My skills:
PHP, MySQL, Perl,
XML, XSL, HTML, Javascript,
Java Server Pages (JSP). "

Greg, I can forward you over his information if you'd like to employ him or maybe help him secure an H1B visa. Im sure his english would be a really good fit for a email response/tech support position.

[geomon]

26. I hope NAFTA is next...

when will they all wake up and realize that the capitalist repubs and dems are killing America for a quick buck???

[OrAnarch]

38. Sometimes I think NAFTAs is my only hope

Maybe itll make it easier for me to relocate to Canada to secure an IT position there.

Haha...not really. I feel everyone's pain.

[freeforall]

44. OrAnarch...

there are no IT jobs here in Canada either. I have had to find other kinds of work because I haven't been able to get a job in IT. There are some that still have high-paying jobs in the industry, but most have had to look for work in other fields.

[OrAnarch]

45. thanks...

Way to put a downer on my week/summer. :(

I appreciate the info. Ive still found more opportunities in Vancouver alone to at least apply for than Washington + Oregon combined. This is truly a sick situation though on a macro scale. Any IT insiders out there have the inside scoop on any info that is partially optimistic in this field (other than this)?

This whole situation is so sad to me, and I hope it can be fixed. My thoughts always drift to the article about the Silicon Valley Techie who killed himeself after one of the Indian workers he trained took his job.

[no_arbusto]

27. The jobs will just go to India with the workers.

Republicans always complain about foreigners taking US jobs and Democrats complain that corporations ship all of our jobs overseas. I think we all know what happens more often.

This will benefit corporations more than anything. They will be able to pay the workers in India even less than they were here. I doubt that unemployed IT workers are really behind this. I would be willing to bet that certain corporate lobbyists have their fingers in this. It's just hard for me to believe that Republican corporations are really concerned about US jobs.

[Frances]

31. The corporations just want to make money

As I understand it, a company can go to India or wherever, hire a person, get him a visa, and then bring him over here. The person is like an indentured servant. He has to work for the amount he contracted while in India, and that amount is less than the going rate for American workers. The whole idea is to get a worker for less money. (There are plenty of well qualified Americans without a job in Silicon Valley.)

It seems to me that a corporation which keeps its base in this country and enjoys the benefits of this country owes something to the citizens of this country who pay the taxes that protect the company.

If the company wants Chinese labor, then the company CEOs should move to China.

[SharonAnn]

36. Yes, but that's a different visa. I think it's an L-2 visa

It's for people who are already employees of companies and are coming to the USA for a specific job. Kind of like when American companies send their workers overseas for an assignment.

[Trek234]

32. Very bad

I don't like this at all. But then again I am very pro-immigration. Personally I think we should immediatly grant citizenship to anyone who wants it with no restrictions, then repeal all visas except for visit/medical/and the like.

BUT I think it should be a two way street. If India wants in on the deal THEY must take up the same policy torwards US citizens. Same for Mexico/Canada or any other nation.

[Kamika]

35. were destroying india

when we take all the educated people from india were really robbing India of its resources to be a better country.. noone wins on it except the corporations

[nolabels]

40. This seems to me, partly of what happened to Iraq

Opec flexing it's strength against the capitalist system attracted funds and people, changed the culture enough to spoil or pamper the movers and shakers. After the people got acclimated with western corporate ways, they got the rug pulled out from under them. They got the got the whammies (after effects) from many sides to be sure. But the attraction by resources (oil) to the country is what brought it on. Once they were assimilated into the Borg, it was impossible for them to pull them selves back out.

[GRClarkesq]

61. They are people not property

They should be able to leave and seek employment elsewhere if someone will have them. If India wants to keep more people that will need to make most of the changes to make that happen.

[reprobate]

33. My only contact with outsourcing to India.

My only contact with indian outsourcing was with a major computer company's tech help dept. My call was answered by a for sure indian male. What could have been a 30 second question and answer, turned into several minutes of "what?", "say again" "can you please spell that?"

While I probably could have understood if we had been face to face, the phone offered no visual cues, so our communications were as frusttating for him as for me.

Seems to me that corporations are forgetting the importance of customer service with their drive to cheaper and cheaper labor. Lose your customer base because of stupid moves like this and all the cheap labor in the world won't help your bottom line.

But then I'm prejudiced. I believe the current version of the capitalist-corporatist system is doomed to failure. The cheaper the labor becomes, the fewer that can buy the product. Yes, I know that's a very simplistic view, but show me where it's wrong. When the bosses have all the money, how are they going to increase profits? Hell, how are they going to make any profits?

[GRClarkesq]

60. Never happen

There is always a bill out there somewhere that will end all temporary visas or drasctically curtail immigration in some manner. They will not overhaul the program in such a drastic manner. Kind of like hoping Congress will overhaul the tax code, sounds good, but never happens.

[PhuLoi]

39. The H1-B is being replaced with the L-1 visa, it's worse.

The L-1 visa allows foreign labor to be imported and allows the families to come with. The spouses are to be allowed to work under the same visa, and presumably their children, even though they are not working in the same fields. This way corporations can get cheap labor to stay longer and get more bodies with less paper work. How efficient.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

57. Corporate Indentured Servitude - H1-B, L-1

Washtech has some good info on this:

http://www.washtech.org/wt/


http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,813829,00.asp
http://www.swanh.org/_forum/00000084.htm
http://web.mid-day.com/news/business/2003/may/54355.htm

[GRClarkesq]

59. H-1B and L-1 not the same thing

The L-1 requires a company overseas and a US company with common ownership that can arrange the transfer of the employee from abroad to the US.

The H-1B does not have this requirement. The employee must work in an H-1B type occupation (not all qualify) and pay a minimum salary based on DOL wage data. No minimum salary requirement for L-1 and easier to fit people into L-1 classification. Spouse of L workers can work in the US, spouse of H workers cannot.

H-1B tends to be more common than L-1 because not all the many firms have a US subsidiary or parent corp. abroad.

[maxsolomon]

42. populist issue #1

is protecting american jobs.

are you listening mr. dean?

this will get you elected.

its STILL THE GODDAMN ECONOMY, stupid!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

62. Dean has already come out AGAINST saving US jobs

Sorry, but he was pretty clear. He said we need to transfer more to raise the living standards of other countries, for defense - if we don't they will become terrorists and attack us. Of course, according to voo-doo economics, if we export all of our jobs, the economy will grow.

Gephardt, Kucinich, and Sharpton are about the only ones who are consistent about saving US jobs.

[w4rma]

63. Dean on free trade (pro-fair trade)

...
HOWARD DEAN: No. What I said-- Well, I'll tell you what I said in a minute. But I'll follow my train of thought here, most briefly. Free trade has benefited Vermont a great deal. Here's the problem with free trade, and here's why I support fair trade, and why I want to change all our trade agreements to include human rights with trade, as Jimmy Carter included human rights with foreign policy. I still think NAFTA was a good thing. I think the president did the right thing. But the problem now is that, 10 years into NAFTA, here's what we've done. We have shipped a lot of our industrial capacity to other countries. And the ownership pattern, and the ratio of reward between capital and labor in those other countries is what it was 100 years ago in this country.

So the reason for NAFTA is not just trade. It's defense and foreign policy. That is, a middle class country where women fully participate in the economic and political decision making of that country is a country that doesn't harbor groups like Al-Qaeda, and it's a country that does not go to war. So that's in our intersect. That's why trade is really in our long term interest. What we've done so far in NAFTA is we've transferred industrial capacity, but we haven't transferred any of the elements that are needed to make a middle class. The truth is, the trade union movement in this country built America, not literally-- Well, they did do it literally with the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, and things like that. But they built America because they allowed people who worked in factories and mines to become middle class people. And America was the strongest country on earth, and still is, because we have the largest middle class on earth, with democratic ideals. That is, working people in this country, by and large, feel that this is their country, and they have a piece of the pie, and it matters what they think.

Now, if you want trade to succeed, ultimately, we're going to have to create a climate in other countries that are beneficiaries of NAFTA where they can create a middle class with democratic ideals. That means we should not have any free trade agreements, and we should go back and tell the WTO that "you need also to include environmental standards and labor standards." Here's why. Today, if you run a factory in Iowa-- Let's suppose you spend a million dollars a year disposing of all the waste products that come out that are toxic. You can go to another country and dump all that stuff in the river and on the ground. So America, because we have environmental standards, and we're willing to trade, straight out, free trade, with countries that it's cheaper by a million dollars, before you even get to wages, to do business there, I think that's a big problem. We're essentially saying, "Our environmental laws are strict. It's cheaper for you to go into business someplace lese. Go ahead." That's the wrong thing to do.

The same with labor standards. I don't know why we should be shipping our jobs offshore when kids can work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for a small amount of wages. And isn't that what America fought against 100 years go? Wasn't that the victory of the trade union movement? So it seems to me that my position makes sense. We've gone through 10 years of free trade. We've gotten to a position where we now need to change our trade agreements.
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http://www.jfklibrary.org/forum_dean.html

[Nottingham]

43. Oh They Better Because if they don't the Americans are gonna

Vote their A$$'s OUT! :bounce:

[inthecorneroverhere]

46. I know I'm gonna be unpopular among some here, but here goes...

My viewpoint is gonna be real unpopular among some here, but, hey, Americans need jobs. When there's a line of 500 people waiting for 1 job, that job should go to the U.S. citizen, rather than the non-citizen immigrant.

I'm with Tancredo on this one.

But, almost certainly in contrast to Tancredo, I believe that those U.S. citizens should also be covered for health insurance, and should not have any overtime that they are owed, taken away from them.

I believe that future social programs should be tied to citizenship.

[Logansquare]

56. Another viewpoint

I know two gay couples each with one non-citizen partner who are being torn apart by this. In one case, the men have lived together for over 15 years, but one partner had to go back to South Africa after his visa expired. If I remember correctly, he has to wait another year for a new H1-B They are both in late middle age and may have to start over again in SA if this goes through.
Of course, if they could get *married* this story would have had a happier ending.