Insourcing Can Affect Us All

[Caro]

If you thought outsourcing was bad for the American middle class, then you’ll like insourcing even less. Insourcing is bringing foreigners to work in this country for lower pay than Americans. It became a problem in my business, information technology, long before anyone thought of sending the work itself overseas. Now, more and more occupations are affected.

Bob Kuttner’s recent column in the Boston Globe informed us that there’s a nursing shortage in the U.S. The main cause of the shortage, Kuttner says, is that there aren’t enough nursing schools or enough teachers of nursing, many of whom are lured into higher paying jobs in the for-profit health care industry. To solve the problem, our government could invest in Americans and in America’s future by funding more schools and better pay for the teachers.

Instead, Republican Senator Sam Brownback wants to raise the ceiling on the importation of trained nurses from foreign countries, who will work for less, thereby undercutting American salaries. You could call it a dis-investment in America, though of course it will make CEOs of big health care conglomerates very, very happy. And it will keep their donation dollars rolling in to the Republican Party.

Just as outsourcing has reached levels never imagined even ten years ago, insourcing is a growing phenomenon. If you don’t think your job is at risk, I suggest you take a look at a new website, Bright Future, dedicated to publicizing information about the H1B program, which was originally supposed to be used to hire foreigners only if Americans can’t fill the position. Instead, jobs are being reserved for foreigners (at lower pay than for Americans, of course), and Americans need not apply.

The occupational distribution pie chart below is from that website. Take a look to see if your job is at risk.



Matt Yglesias, writing on The American Prospect’s blog TAPPED, wonders if college professors who so selflessly give away other people’s jobs by applauding outsourcing will change their minds as the education slice in the above pie chart increases. Can’t an economics professor from India teach as well as an American professor? And for less money?

Oh, and if you’re in the media don't think this problem won’t affect you. Writing and editorial jobs are being outsourced even as we speak. How long will it be before those jobs are insourced, as well?

This program will affect every single American. Bookmark Bright Future, join the discussions there, and stay informed.

Your economic future is at stake.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[saltpoint]

1. Many, if not most, European and Asian immigrants to this country were

also hired at lower wages for traditional work over the course of the last two centuries.

Your point about immigrants is that just of a sudden our economy is threatened by their working for less? The nation is built on a disparate and unfair economy. The span of who makes what for how much compared with someone else making so much more for less work, etc. is ENORMOUS.

Irish immigrants in NYC were treated malevolently by already-here "Americans" who themselves were overwhelmingly descendent from Europeans. Conscription. Prejudice. Bigotry, Violence. Economic disparity.

Here is a look at just one national group -- Ireland -- which today is the 4th largest ethnic group descendency in the country.

_ _ _ _ _

Irish Americans made up about 11 percent of the U.S. population in 2000, with a reported population of 30.5 million. They were the fourth largest ancestral group in the United States, after German Americans, Hispanic or Latino Americans, and African Americans. Irish Americans have spread throughout the United States and have long been assimilated (absorbed) in the mainstream culture. It is difficult, therefore, to imagine that 150 years ago, Irish Catholic immigrants faced severe discrimination (unfair treatment based on racism or other prejudices) when they arrived in the country. Many of the early immigrants suffered wretched living conditions and performed backbreaking work for low wages in the hope that their children would have a better life. Some historians have observed that the experience of the 4.5 million Irish immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth century was typical of the American immigrant experience in general. The American Immigration Law Foundation, for example, asserts that "Irish immigration to America represented the first mass immigration to the United States and set the stage for all future immigrating ethnic minorities."

http://www.bookrags.com/history/multiculturalism/irish-immigration-uimr-01/
_ _ _ _ _

Where would you like to start on the subject of "insourcing" regarding the Irish? You'd move then to the Afro-Americans, the same-hemisphere Spanish-speakers, then the Germans. Those four, in reverse order, are our largest ethnic descendencies. At what point do you admit to the almost uninterrupted ebb and flow of immigration and wage disparity and decide to erect a giant FENCE along our borders?

Odd that your timing is just now. How tall and wide would the Fence have to be to keep someone from India out, for example?

[acmejack]

9. I think you are wrong on this one!

H1-Bs have been used as a club to destroy entire industries, they have forced the American workers out by moving in lower paid foreign workers. Playing the racism card here is simply incorrect, the corporations have used the H1-B to bring highly paid programmers and engineers to heel.

I know about this issue I saw it in action at Dell. No prejudice at all here I have worked with many of these folks, they are competent, personable and courteous. But survival is at stake here too...

[LiberalEsto]

17. My husband is a database administrator

Over the years he has watched co-workers laid off in droves and replaced by H1-B programmers and system analysts from India. The H1B regulations say these people are supposed to be paid the equivalent of what an American worker would be paid for the same job.

However, companies get around it by changing a few tasks in the job description and claiming it is not the same position. So a $75,000-a-year systems analyst gets canned, and winds up on unemployment, unable to find anything in his line of work. And someone from India comes in on an H1B visa to take his job, at a salary of $35,000.

The company reaps a huge savings and passes part of it to their lobbyists, who push Congress to raise limits on the number of H1B workers.

I was in an unemployment support group with several unemployed computer professionals who used to earn decent middle-class salaries. These guys ended up broke after the unemployment benefits ran out. It took three years for one of them to find a job in his field, with significantly lower pay.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, lots of Americans studied for computer jobs, because the nation's manufacturing base was moving overseas, and factory jobs were vanishing. People were told that high-tech was the future. They invested years and thousands of dollars in specialized computer education, and found jobs that enabled them to buy homes and raise children, even though both husband and wife needed to work full time in order to pay the bills.

Now, because of corporate greed (so that CEOs and high-level execs can get enormous salaries and bonuses) Americans have been phased out of another career field that offered a middle-class life. Similar things are happening in other fields.

One of the characters in one of Kurt Vonnegut's early novels, "Player Piano," was a foreign ruler visiting a future America in which only top PhDs had jobs, and the other options were the military or janitorial work. Machines did everything. And after witnessing all this, the ruler's only question for the supercomputer that ran the country was: "What are people FOR?"

If we continue in this direction, what is going to happen to us as people? Houses cost a fortune, college costs a fortune, and Congress still refuses to raise the $5.15 minimum wage to something people can live on. People no longer have medical benefits. Doctors and dentists cost a fortune. We are failing to take care of the people who are already here, living in America, wanting work that pays enough to live on.

[unlawflcombatnt]

42. Excellent Post

You should post this as on OP. This is really a comprehensive explanation of what's happened to the people that were re-trained to do the jobs in the "new" economy, and have now been phased out of the field they had been re-trained for. These people are proof that our employment problems are NOT the result of lack of job skills, but rather the abundance of skilled workers in other countries who'll work for less.

It's not about job skills. It's about who'll work for the least amount of money.

[LiberalEsto]

45. Thank you

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is an OP? I'll be happy to edit and post it.

[primative1]

46. OP ... original post

He is suggesting you start a new thread

[LiberalEsto]

51. Thanks. nt

[saltpoint]

29. Hi, acmejack. I'm standing on the shoulders of established stats.

I don't have the skills myslef to compile them. I could be taught, but what I'm saying is I don't have those resources at the ready on my own. They're compiled from a variety of sources, and they trend toward the same conclusions over 2 centuries of American life.

That's definitely not to counter your own experience, and the stats themselves allow for those exceptions.

[unlawflcombatnt]

38. Exactly

Putting the interests of American workers above those of foreign workers seems like a no-brainer to me. The United States government is supposed to represent the United States people. Foreign workers didn't elect them. Americans did.

[Gormy Cuss]

21. The Irish didn't come in at the professional level

The Irish immigration experience here is just not a good analogy. The Irish weren't recruited to high-level occupations of their day. They were the backs meant to be broken, just like all the other large waves of poorly educated and destitute immigrants.

The H1B program is an effort to expand the recruiting of educated and skilled individuals -- not a bad goal. The problem arises when this new talent isn't used just to expand the labor pool to meet demand but instead is used to increase competition for the existing pool of workers. That serves business only.

Perhaps the problem solved by H1B is that these workers are doing the jobs that Americans won't do like IT, nursing, teaching et cetera. :sarcasm:

In the 1990s when H1Bs were first used to expand the IT workforce the reason stated was that we needed more workers than were available from our own educational system. That was true and a good short term solution. Then the bottom fell out of that industry, yet the argument is still that we need IT workers from abroad. How is that the case?

On to nursing and teaching. We need to import people because our education system isn't produce them fast enough. Part of the reason is instructors aren't paid at a competitive rate.

The root cause always comes back to an inferior education system in the U.S. The corporate community and government find it more profitable to import workers than address that deficiency.

[Greyhound]

25. I agree with your sentiment, but you've made a mistake.

You stated, "In the 1990s when H1Bs were first used to expand the IT workforce the reason stated was that we needed more workers than were available from our own educational system. That was true and a good short term solution."

This was, in fact, simply a lie told over and over by a fake "industry advocate" ITTA, that was created by and strictly for the owners of IT companies, to give cover for the politiwhores.

There is only one legitimate reason for worker shortages and that is the industry's refusal to pay the cost of getting the job done.

[Gormy Cuss]

35. Well, it seemed true in the IT hotbeds in the early 1990s

although it was probably overstated because the industry redefined IT jobs to narrow definitions of relevant training and experience. I was on hiring committees for programmers and IT infrastructure in a 1000 employee company in Boston and we had a very difficult time recruiting (the company never used H1Bs.) I thought at the time that OJT of a bright liberal arts grad was probably as good as solution as trying to churn out computer science grads from mediocre programs. In fact, I recall a number of the old programmers getting pushed aside for H1Bs who knew only one language or worse yet, knew only one application. I've worked with a few over the years and they ranged from smart and facile to dumber than a rock, and the last group should have had their visas revoked and pronto.

On edit: what is a good source of IT labor stats from the 1990s?

Regardless of the actual situation, there is no excuse for claiming that we've needed to import more than a handful of specially qualified IT people since the dotcom crash, yet we have been doing so every year.

[saltpoint]

30. 'Appreciate your emphasis on root-causes, Gormy Cuss. Actually

that is what is missing from a lot of the discussion on Immigration. You don't shy from it & I say hurray for you for that.

I agree that no two cultures whose members immigrate are exactly analogous, but the low-wage earning immigrant theme runs strongly through both this-hemisphere hispanic and Latino populations as well as German and Irish and Afro-American populations. Economically, there is no tilt at all toward high-income positions.

On nurses and educators and technical professions, I think you hit it just right on education. Even with no immigrant issue at ALL, U.S. schools dramatially under-educate their kids. I graduated from a "good" public high school, but when I compare its curriculum and compare what I was asked to accomplish with the same points in European or Asian schools, I feel like an absolute imbecile.

[treestar]

49. H-1Bs are at a minimum now and no one says they are still

needed for IT workers, they are possible for any professional job. But now there are not enough of them to really affect the job market that much except maybe to keep some businesses from expanding. So they go to India to do it. Great job, US. Some Americans may have lost their jobs because of it. No job exists in a vacuum. If there is a professional position that cannot be filled, then there are 100 supporting jobs that no longer exist.

This view of foreign workers is as if the foreigner just comes here, spends nothing while living here, has no effect on the rest of the economy by being here. Whereas in reality, one job begets another.

We hobble ourselves in our economy all the time on the mere ground of not having more persons born outside the US working in the US. This is the way of other countries and the reason they never prosper very much except outside of odd occurrences. The Saudis for instance, would be poor as church mice if they had no foreigners there. They don't do anything themselves. And they are very stuck on their own superiority too.

The US became rich because of how it took whoever it needed when needed. People who are just scared of foreginers for one reason or another are determined to undo that. So they can feel safe and cosy. But a stagnant economy will not allow us to afford all of our fancy "security."

[primative1]

50. Why tree star ,,

Are you actually persistent in defending the H1B program?
Do you also support the capital gains tax cut as a reasonable solution to pump the economy?

[entanglement]

2. Interesting

I've heard such arguments before, and they essentially amount to opposition to immigration in all forms, including legal immigration. When somebody immigrates to the US legally, he/she needs a job to get by. Using the argument that 'they are being brought in to take jobs' makes as much sense as saying 'the people who came through Ellis Island were brought in to take American jobs'.

Using your arguments, there is never a time when (legal) immigration is good. Indeed, historically native born Americans have never been supportive of immigration in any form, for numerous reasons.

Immigration is an issue whose perceived drawbacks are felt by individuals, but not the benefits. For example, numerous (famous) scientists / mathematicians immigrated to the US in the 20th century, contributing to areas as diverse as rocketry and biology. In some sense, these people were certainly 'displacing' native born Americans but that should be weighed against the enormous (positive) effects of their work.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

12. I see it differently...

I understand your angle and it is probably shared by the majority, but I'm hoping people can see that the reason these things are happening to us is not because of immigration, but because employers are refusing to pay fair wages and claiming "Americans just won't do the jobs".

It seems to me that the above is the catalyst. Am I over-simplifying?

[MockSwede]

63. Race to the Bottom

Nope, you're not oversimplifying. Anytime something can be 'reduced' or 'lowered' or 'saved' it means some WORKER is getting SCREWED. IF employers can get this labor situation to the point where we'd PAY THEM to work, they will. Think 'company stores' and 'company housing' near mines and factories in the 1920-30s.

[PsycheCC]

64. I agree. n/t

[unlawflcombatnt]

66. "The Majority"

Koyannis,

I think the majority agree with you (and me) on this one. Illegal immigrants and H1B visa holders are suppressing the wages of American citizens. They are not taking jobs Americans won't do. They are taking jobs Americans won't do for the pay that is offered. The solution is for the employer to pay enough to hire Americans, not to import workers who'll work for less.

unlawflcombatnt

EconomicPopulistCommentary

Economic Patriots' Forum

___________
The economy needs balance between the "means of production" & "means of consumption."

[PsycheCC]

67. You're right, the employers who refuse to pay fair wages create the

problem, and immigrants are caught in the middle of the larger conflict. Costly penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants would be a good beginning point in addressing this problem.

[wakeme2008]

3. 2,000 Americans in Tampa lost their full-time jobs to H1Bs

Starting around 1999 GTE Data fired 2,000 Americans and replaced them with H1Bs.

:grr:

This was not a case of not enough US workers.... Just $$$$$

[Deja Q]

7. Bingo. It's all about money and people misconstrue it as a 'racial' issue.

[rogerashton]

4. Insourcing professors

Insourcing professors is a really old story. The head of my department is an immigrant from India. I don't think he works for lower wages, though. 15 years ago the new hires were from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Jordan, USA, USA. Recently we have made several hires who grew up in the USA, but also Romania and Argentina. They are not beating down the wages either. Anyway, what the heck. Most of our graduate students and a big proportion of our undergrads are from Asia. So if economists favor globalization (and most do) it is not because we have not experienced it!

It's one world, folks. Love it or leave it.

[LiberalEsto]

18. Please tell me how people in another country would react

if vast numbers of Americans flooded in and took all their best-paying middle class jobs. And the people in that country were relegated to service jobs that barely paid enough to live on?

Say we managed to get the Indian or Romanian or Indonesian or whatever parliament to rewrite its immigration and employment rules to stack things in favor of American workers. Say tens of thousands, even 100,000, Americans flooded into that country -- or any other industrialized nation -- and snagged all the good jobs in a given field or two, at lower pay.

I think there would be riots. People expect the governments they elect to take care of THEM.

[raccoon]

19. Not only that, but more and more professors are adjunct faculty.

Part-time, no benefits, no future.

[Caro]

20. No, thanks.

I'll fight.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[Greyhound]

26. BS alert!

[entanglement]

37. It's not

Have you visited the campus of any large research university lately?

[union_maid]

5. The middle class increasingly has nowhere to go

My sister was talking to man in banking recently. He's still doing all right but he says he doesn't want his son to go to college. He's settled on marine welding or something as the least likely job to be sent overseas or insourced to cheaper labor. Don't ask me. I know nothing about marine welding. All I'm saying is that Americans really don't know what to do at this point. Bill Gates complains that young people aren't going into computer science, but chances are it's because they've seen what their parents have gone through with this. There's nowhere to go anymore. We're going to have to figure something out if we're going to continue to have a middle class. And politicians are going to have to stop telling us it's good for us. We're living it and we know better than that.

[cornermouse]

6. Why would young people go into computer science after

Gates sent the computer science jobs overseas? It costs a lot of money to get the education. The return on that money spent isn't necessarily going to be returned in computer science. Call it a business decision.

[Deja Q]

8. Read up on Bill Gates. He is no philanthropist.

In business, he's a predator and a vulture. Despite being caught by the government on SEVERAL occasions, he continues his same methods. By then his goal is accomplished and the gov't is slow to respond anyway.

Hell, in January 2005 he converted his wealth to the Euro and then insulted the dollar. What a patriot. :sarcasm:

People aren't going into computer science because education itself is expensive and anything that remains upon graduation won't begin to pay back the tuition loans. It's funny how some people conveniently cherrypick the issues... the whole story is far more intersting.

It's a fuckin' JOKE.

[cornermouse]

10. Not only that. His philanthropy is a business decision is disguise.

Education in third world countries overseas is no doubt much less expensive, as are salaries. By contributing to the cheaper third world educational system to educate cheaper workers for his company, Gates figures he's coming out ahead of the game while collecting favorable PR along the way. Win/win situation all the way around. :sarcasm:

Just another business decision.

[brokensymmetry]

11. Absolutely true.

We're transforming ourselves into a third-world colony
of the * family.

Our lifestyles will adjust downward.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

14. It is so true, I personally experienced this in-sourcing in the

computer industry. They the (corps.) forced us into becoming consultants in the mid 90's, how? They were not hiring full time employees. Then, with Y2K, the consulting fees paid escalated and H1B visas expanded exponentially. This was an attempt to drive cost of doing business up to justify out/in sourcing.

After the Y2K bust, the corps. would not hire those of us who had become consultants (remember, THEY created the consultant situation by ONLY hiring contractors), because we were consultants. It is all a big game by the corps. to manipulate the workers and make you jump when they say jump, because they control your livelihood.

Please, don't even make this a race issue, it is NOT, that is the corporate masters spin. Imagine working long, very long hours to build up an incredible professional reputation, only to have your job in/out sourced in mid life. Oh, and as for education, I have a BS in Marketing, Finance and Computer Science.

Why should I spend another dime on education, to only once again, have my career cut short by such immoral practices?

[Greyhound]

28. I don't have to imagine it, I lived it. Spent way too much for a worthless

degree to get in the door. Worked my ass off for a decade to build a national reputation. Made a decent living for < 5 years and got outsourced and off-shored for the next 3 until all the $ was gone and I am now unemployable in my field because I'm middle-aged and made a good salary.

Ironically, all of my contracts for the last 3 years in IT were to come in and fix the garbage that came back from out-sourced projects, at approximately twice the cost if they had just done it here with people that know the business and know how to create software that works well.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

33. Don't let anyone tell you that it because they (H1B's) provide

competition. That is a lie, I have not found anyone among those I worked with to be anything other than a coder. They have no concept of the American business process and therefore are incapable of making informed decisions in their system designs.

The It consulting firms in the late 80's/early 90's, started bringing in foreign labor with the promise of a green card. They would pay them excessively, because of the green card issue.

This is directly from the mouths of a Scotsman, 2 South Africans and an Englishman that I worked with who came over very early in that time frame on H1B visas. The ITT firms first recruited heavily in the English speaking/higher educational markets. This made the transition easier to start, no real language issues. These guys had to put up with long hours and way less pay (still better from what they could make at home cost of living adjusted). Then, when the green cards came (English is 2-3 yrs and South Africa was slightly longer) they demanded the same pay as their American counterparts.

These guys, said that once the firm realized this, they started to look for countries were it would take a longer period of time (more $$ for their handlers) till the employee would be eligible for green cards. They then started to recruit from India, the Philippines, etc. Oh, yes, and they looked for a population that would be more servile in nature, the English % SA's, said they learned real quick how assertive those with British origins could become, bugger off, I believe was the mildest expletive.

This particular American firm went so far as to open training centers in these countries, and those who were being trained there did not receive the equivalent of a BS diploma, but got jobs that required US citizens to have a BA/BS.

Don't even get me started on the home grown bastard consulting firms of Price Waterhouse, Arthur Andersen, Computer Science Corp., etc. They were far more devious at corporate collusion with the CEO's. The money flowed to the consulting firms and the cost benefits by moving the payroll commitment into a different account, thus appearing to lower costs and CEO bonus to escalate.

I have had several friends become project managers to foreign teams. They either hate their jobs or quit, because of communication, time zone, technical, etc. issues. It is somewhat difficult to relay specifications face to face yet alone of the phone with language issues.

Here are some of my personal experiences. I ran a project with a German interface. It was in a language that was basically German influenced the problem was we had just 2-3 hrs of overlap in our work days. This was not my only project, nor theirs, so we were able to still produce in other areas, but that project dragged on for ever.

I worked for a Wall Street firm that outsourced an 80 million dollar project to India. It was shelved in less than a year, because of language/business issues. As for as the technical skills from India, they to are very high, it is the business process, required for the design is lacking. They work in India, they have no exposure to the work flow that they were trying to develop for.

American business is really in bad shape because of the corruption in top management. It is a sad state of US affairs because our own are robbing us blind.

[Greyhound]

34. Preaching to the choir here sister. The whole mess, throughout

amerikan business, was brought about, and is maintained by, lies. Lying is the standard. :crazy:

[I_Make_Mistakes]

36. Too late to edit so please apply the change to the above post

The It consulting firms in the late 80's/early 90's, started bringing in foreign labor with the promise of a green card. They would pay them excessively low, because of the green card issue.

[primative1]

13. 60 Minutes is Your friend ...

I remember a story that was done on 60 minutes 3 or 4 years ago where they were talking about "India .. They export people ... smart ones"; and it was basically one big shill for the H1B program. I didn't think much about it at the time until I went to work as an engineer at General Electric. Odd that the majority of their engineers are Indian. How did that come to be. I lasted one year there on a contract and in the ned was asked to show my Indian replacement some real basics like windows and email ...
Exactly what kind of engineer doesn't know windows in this day and age?
It happened to me.
H1B is just another corporate scam and its the biggest companies that are the largest offenders. But the propoganda that has allowed its existence has been well laid out long in advance. People accept that there are a lack of engineers because that is what they have been told for so long.
Look out when those same people are now telling you that there is a shortage of willing laborers.

[AzDar]

15. IIRC, the outrage just passed in the Senate last week allows for a

large INCREASE in H1B visas in the next few years.
This is not about racism,or xenophobia, it's about our (as well as our chidren's) futures being sold-out by Congress for the benefit of their Corporate masters.

[primative1]

16. Was it a roll call vote?

If so where can i find it?

[Caro]

22. Senate votes are here...

http://senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/a_three_sections_with_teasers/votes.htm

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[primative1]

23. Thanks But ....

Am I the only one that doesn't see any action regarding H1B visas? I know the legislature tends to act in code speak but which of bills relates?

[Caro]

24. I guess the poster meant...

... the immigration bill, but a quick survey didn't reveal a reference to h1b.

Caro

[primative1]

27. That was my take ...

if they would have snuck one through in the wee hours I would have been most curious who supported it.

[AzDar]

41. Again, this is IIRC, the info that the amount of H1B visas

was to be roughly doubled was in an online edition of a foreign newspaper...the Hindustan Times, I think.
Rather shocking.

[Greyhound]

31. K&R

:kick::thumbsup:

[area51]

32. Great post on an important issue.

Here's a nice article on just how the nazi party views decent Americans — as disposable.

[unlawflcombatnt]

43. Thanks for the article

Great article. I wanted to post a key passage from the article here:

"At the heart of the layoff phenomenon is the myth, endlessly repeated by corporate leaders and politicians of both parties, that workers who are thrown out of their jobs can save themselves, can latch onto spiffy new jobs by becoming better educated and acquiring new skills.

'Education and training create the jobs, according to this way of thinking,' writes Mr. Uchitelle. 'Or, put another way, a job materializes for every trained or educated worker, a job commensurate with his or her skills, for which he or she is appropriately paid.'
That is just not so, and the corporate and political elite need to stop feeding that bogus line to the public..

Jobs don't materialize because the workers to man the jobs are available. They "materialize" when the demand of consumers increases enough to create more demand for the labor to provide that production.

[Robert Oak]

39. Great post

We need to get this out there, insourcing is very read and liberals are not getting correct information due to the propaganda strategy to confuse the desire to let some illegals stay in the country which buries labor issues deep in the bills.

S.2611 has massive labor arbitrage Visa increases with zero fixing or investment in American training and education.

H-1B, H-2B, L-1, F-4 and really the H-2C (although now it might appear illegals will be given more worker protections than Americans),

in essence these Visas are used for labor arbitrage and in addition they are offshore outsourcing education and training while leaving Americans wanting to specialize in these fields high and dry.

[unlawflcombatnt]

40. Right you are

This message has got to get out. Foreign workers take American jobs, reducing American employment and wages. This is such a simple concept that it's hard to understand why there's so much debate on it.

More workers in any field reduce wages in that field. If the new foreign workers will accept lower wages, it depresses wages even more. This is true with H1B visas, and it's true with illegal immigration. Those denying this are simply doing the bidding of Bush and Corporate America and helping destroy the middle class and American workers.

[Caro]

44. There's debate...

... because it's cheaper for corporations to fund obfuscation campaigns than it is to pay all their workers decent wages. It's the same thing that keeps happening with global warming. All they have to do is throw enough sand in people's eyes to keep them from getting angry enough to man the barricades.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[treestar]

47. No, insourcing, if it is the oppo of outsourcing, would be foreign

entrepreneurs to the US to invest. We need that, God knows we've lost the entrepreneurial capability ourselves, being totally dependent on being offered jobs.

But insourcing as you describe it is better than outsourcing. At least the foreigners are in the US and all their consumption is in the US. All of the business purchases, or most of them, are being made in the US.

It is possible that Americans lose jobs due to foreigners not being in the US. No one ever looks into the question beyond the most shallow, one minute snapshot view of economic activity.

If we let it all go to India (and there are tales of Americans going to India for jobs) the action is in India, and India becomes the economic powerhouse, not the US.

And read the H-1B statute and regulations. Employers of H-1Bs have to show the US government they are paying the prevailing wage. Why would they subject themselves to more possible criminal prosecution after going through the burdensome H-1B process?

And if they can disobey these laws and get away with it, then it just shows how difficult enforcement of it all is, and how worthless. If there are 12 million out and out illegals they can't locate and get to and prevent entry of, they certainly can't get to people who have on the surface obeyed the law by going through the H-1B process.

There aren't that many H-1Bs in the scheme of things, either. There are millions of Americans who could be working for less than prevailing wage, just because they did not negotiate their salaries effectively. In that sense, H-1Bs are literally protected by law from agreeing to work for less than the prevailing wage. .

All this to protect us from competition in the job market. Like we need it, right? I guess we are admitting the foreigners do a better job for less money. In which case, we need some of them here to get things started so we will have jobs working for others. Since creating them on our own is apparently beyond our abilities.


Let employers hire who they want and all will prosper.

[primative1]

48. Maybe but you miss one minor point ..

,,, and it is minor. Many of the H1B visa holders are either sending money directly home or avidly saving it for their eventual returns home. Either way takes money directly out of the economy.

[Greyhound]

54. Are you familiar with the term "codswallop"?

It is rare that someone posts a reply that is completely incorrect on every single point, but I have hand it to you, you have achieved that particular milestone. Keep on spouting the lies, the fascists have been exposed and need your cover.

[primative1]

52. Has Anyone Seen Member Treestar?

I have become concerned. Judging from their ramblings earlier today and the stories I have been told about the awful effects one might expect if one should accidentally ingest the kool aid, I am certain that someone must have slipped some of the noxious liqueur into poor treestar's holiday punch bowl. Hope all is well :(

[unlawflcombatnt]

55. Has been seen today

I responded to a "treestar" rant earlier. Still sounds like a Corporatocratic supply-sider to me. Just like before. He (or she) is still drinking the same kool-aid as before. Without any change in behavior.

[CAcyclist]

53. Banfield Has Tried To Rewrite Our Veterinary Regulations in CA

To make it easier for them to import cheaper, more compliant labor from overseas. Veterinarians don't want to work for Banfield because they are the worst of the corporate veterinary companies - low pay is one thing, but you are required to do completely cookbook veterinary medicine - you are not allowed to think for yourself or God forbid, be on the cutting edge. You have no control over which medicines to use, how to arrange the clinic, how to stage appointments - everything is completely rigid.

[unlawflcombatnt]

56. Kick

:kick:

[KoKo]

57. Thanks for this post CARO........n/t

[Caro]

58. You're most welcome.

I'll be writing more on this topic.

Caro

[unlawflcombatnt]

59. Thanks again for an excellent post

Thanks again for an excellent post. I also wanted to mention that there is an excellent site that details the H1B visa problems along with the other abuses of these work visas in suppressing American wages. The owner of the site has done a great job of assembling many references to the different rules and laws affecting these visas. If you get a chance you should check it out at either

http://forum.noslaves.com/
or
http://www.noslaves.com/

The latter of these links also has a link to Jim Webb's Virginia Democratic primary Senatorial campaign. Webb opposes illegal immigration and visa abuse, while his Democratic primary opponent favors open borders, amnesty, and increasing H1B visas (because the "poor" oppressed employers just can't find enough Americans to do the jobs.)
:nopity:

[rniel]

60. Your going to train the guy who replaces you

and he gets paid half of what you did.

Isn't that fun.

[PsycheCC]

61. Thanks for this post! Great reading. n/t

[MockSwede]

62. Insourcing

Same thing with doctors and pharmacists, not just nurses.

And hospitals can get H1-B visas from government to get all of them and they are not counted as part of the immigration limits. Just 'temporary, critical-needs' importation of labor.

[unlawflcombatnt]

65. Amen

You're right. There are many American medical residency spots filled each year by foreign-born, foreign trained doctors who are not U.S. citizens. And there are so-called underserved areas where many of them are recruited, since American doctors won't work in those areas for the pay that's offered. Heaven forbid the employers of these doctors would have to pay the market rate to hire a doctor. It might reduce their exorbitant profits to slightly less exorbitant levels.

unlawflcombatnt

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Economic Patriots' Forum

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