Reform Visa Program

[Azlady]

Published on 12/17/2008
TheDay.com


Evidence mounts that companies are abusing visa program to take work away from skilled American Workers to save money. Given the current economic climate, Congress cannot afford to let that continue.

The H-1B visa program needs a major overhaul to stop companies from using it to replace skilled American workers with foreign nationals.

Congress created the program to allow companies to hire foreign workers with needed special skills only when a shortage of skilled American workers existed. Instead, some companies use the program to hire foreign workers at lower pay to replace American employees. That is unacceptable.

Companies also use the H-1B to bring workers to the United States, train them, then rotate them back to their home country as a form of job outsourcing.

Needed reforms include:

n Strict rules requiring companies to demonstrate good-faith efforts to find skilled American workers before turning to H-1B employees.

n Mandating a random review process to verify that companies pay H-1B employees prevailing wages with heavy fines for violations. As long as companies can save money by using H-1B, abuses will continue.

n Improve communication between the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to root out fraudulent visa applications, detect company abuses and monitor wages. Since 2003, two General Accounting Office reports have pointed to poor communication among the departments.

In several stories, Day staff reporter Lee Howard has taken a hard look at the program, including reports that Pfizer Inc. used it over the past three years to move work at its New London and Groton facilities from American information-technology contractors to less costly firms that hire largely from India.


Pfizer says outsourcing information technology and other work to contractors saves the company money. Pfizer takes the position that those contractors, not Pfizer, are responsible for obtaining needed H-1B visas and following the rules.

Whoever is abusing the system, the result is the same - foreign nationals taking jobs from skilled American workers.

Congress needs to stop it, and now.


http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=de252ccf-62a5-4b60-b041-e8c26f77c062

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Hello Congress - the bleeding of our jobs must stop!

[napi21]

1. I don't know how it works at Pfizer, but the co. I worked for

PAID the fees required to obtain an H 1B VISA. They also sponsored the person coming into the Country and promised they would have a job.

Pfizer takes the position that those contractors, not Pfizer, are responsible for obtaining needed H-1B visas and following the rules.

As I understand it, one of the requirements to get an H 1B is that you have a job and SOME US citizen or business must sponsor you.

[sharp_stick]

2. Pfizer used to sponsor all kinds of H1

applications. I know lots of scientists that worked at the Groton site and all fees/legal issues were taken care of by the company. This could be something new or something directly related to IT because the Pfizer Family is no more.

Pfizer has become a pariah among pharma companies lately, I don't know anybody that would want to take a job with them They are Pfiring workers left/right and center now and in another little jab are doing it slowly enough that they don't trigger the WARN act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act

Bunch of pathetic corporate tools have ruined a formerly fantastic company.

http://www.cafepress.com/pfired%20

[OhioChick]

3. Simple:

No jobs for U.S. citizens....No Recovery.

Who is lobbying CONgress?

[sledgehammer]

4. Crack down on prevailing wage abuse, and the rest will follow

Mandating a random review process to verify that companies pay H-1B employees prevailing wages with heavy fines for violations. As long as companies can save money by using H-1B, abuses will continue.

This is the single most effective way of reducing the abuse. If the cost benefit goes away, the abuse will die down considerably.

I think each company that hires H-1s should submit their H-1 employee W-2s to CIS, along with a signed statement/analysis comparing each employee's wage to the prevailing wage, explaining variances, and certifying that the wages are consistent with the prevailing wage.

And then CIS reviews these submissions for accuracy. Obviously CIS can only do a sampling, but it should select as large a sample as it can and specifically target the usual suspects. And big fines should be imposed on violators.

If funds are needed to create such a program, then even an increase of just $100 for each new H-1 application should cover it comfortably.

This is all very doable, and the impact would be tremendous.

[ihavenobias]

5. Only 3 recs?

I'm surprised!

[sarcasmo]

6. Rec 4. Corporations are evil scum.

[Azlady]

7. I'm tired of our jobs being taken from us, time to start up micro companies-

that hire US Citizens! This is getting too crazy! They should stop all worker Visa programs for full review & design a better system to protect the US workers and the H1b visa holders as well, but sorry visa holders... USA FIRST