H-1B: Bombing the Middle Class
H-1B: Bombing the Middle Class
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 9:35 PM
H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
In a recent newsletter I pointed out that H-1B and L-1 was written into
the WTO GATT agreement. These visas are crafted by the globalists - and
that is something that has not gotten enough attention until Diane
Alden's excellent article. Her explanation of how the globalists are
using immigration to destroy the American middle class is the probably
the best I have ever read. Everyone should know more about the "lets
kill the middle class lunch bunch" before it's too late.
Pay close attention when she talks about Michael Emmon's struggle
against the L-1 visa. In very courageous fashion he wrote a letter to
his former employer, Siemans, that has got to be read to be
appreciated. It's better if you see it online because he supplies a lot
of links so go to:
http://www.hannatroup.com:81/
and then click on "Emails to George C. Nolen, CEO Siemens ICN"
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/2/10/183350.shtml
H-1B: Bombing the Middle Class
Diane Alden
Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003
This article is the second in a five-part series on immigration in
America.
Part I: Dumping the Third World on the West
H-1B and L-1 Visas: A Bipartisan Approach for Killing Off the Middle
Class Who is the cheap labor lobby? That lobby includes limousine
liberals like Bill Gates and nominal conservatives such as Michael
Barone. In addition, the lobby involves nice upper middle class people
who need inexpensive childcare workers, domestics and gardeners.
In the scheme of things, they are small potatoes. The big fish are the
restaurant and hotel industry, unions, the technical industry,
especially information technology, insurance companies, corporate
agriculture, universities hungry for new money and new blood, the
meat-packing industry and sweat shop clothing manufacturers helped
along by the abstract and mechanical charitable policies of some
American churches.
Then of course the 15,000 immigration lawyers, and public interest law
firms for which they toil, do indeed work overtime trying to convince
politicians and America that the influx of immigrants has absolutely no
negative effects on America or American workers.
The lawyers tell the world that immigrants pay more in taxes than they
collect in welfare benefits or social services. After perusing the
numbers, I can understand why Shakespeare admonished, "Kill the
lawyers."
Immigration lawyers will crunch numbers but they dont want to
discuss the impact of unrestricted immigration on the body politic or
the cohesion and future progress of America and those born here.
They also wont tell you that the rule of law is being twisted and
contorted in order to satisfy special interests, the cheap-labor lobby,
and the economic and political establishment. As the state of Minnesota
discovered in 2000, large public interest law firms will sue state
social services for failing to tell people in eight different languages
what their benefits and services might be.
The Old H-1B Gimmick
Among the most dishonest techniques the cheap-labor lobby uses to
further its agenda is the visa system. Open the big carpetbag
containing visas and you will find the H-1B and L-1.
Corporate America seems to chew up and spit out technical people like a
reformed smoker chomps gum. Evidence mounts that corporations ask and
receive, from Congress and the system, the expansion of these
particular visa practices.
The result is a flood of cheap labor into the U.S., with ensuing
depressed wages not just for American workers but for immigrants as
well. It amounts to indentured servitude for the visa holder and the
practice of training their replacements for native-born workers. All
this is done at the expense of the American middle class. (More on this
later.)
The misuse of the visa system is devastating the computer job market
and keeping wages artificially low and the visa holders themselves as
indentured servants to the economic oligarchy.
Not a few economic analysts believe that part of our present economic
problems is a result of distorting the market by using cheap labor
practices to keep wages down. While that may also keep down costs for
corporate America, it has absolutely nothing to do with the free market
and the economic progress of native-born Americans.
It has everything to do with corporatism, as opposed to free-market
capitalism, and the convenient collusion between government and
business. While that is nothing new, it is now the middle and upper
middle class feeling the pain generated by that collusion.
Technical immigrants on H-1B visas may not receive food stamps or free
medical benefits; however, they are replacing American-born programmers
and technicians because they will work for a third to half less. When
they lose a job, H-1Bs are out of luck because of the way the system is
set up. Those who have the money to return to their country of origin
are lucky, but most stay on in the U.S. illegally.
Keeping the above in mind, I like to refer to the economic ruling class
and political oligarchy as the "lets kill the middle class" lunch
bunch. It is alive and well and some of the names in this bunch would
surprise you. It isnt just Ted Kennedy, Dick Gephardt, Bill Clinton
and Tom Daschle who apparently harbor a desire to strangle the middle
class.
Among those who think importing cheap labor is peachy-keen is President
Bush, at least before Sept. 11, 2001. According to the Washington Times
shortly before that fateful day, Bush said, "We ought not to penalize
an employer who is trying to get a job done, who hires somebody who is
willing to do that kind of work."
"That" kind of work is what native-born Americans supposedly dont
want to do. President Bush is misinformed if he thinks immigrant labor
simply does what native-born Americans dont want to do.
There is no shortage of American-born labor, there are just far too
many employers willing to support and demand the admission of wave
after wave of illegal, legal, asylum seekers and refugees in order to
suppress wages to keep down costs and enhance their bottom line.
What that does, however, is to further the meltdown of the middle
class. It also disallows the "poor," even the immigrant poor, from a
chance to earn wages that keep up with costs and allows them to get
ahead.
Well-known conservatives like tax-reform expert Grover Norquist have
petitioned the U.S. Congress to expand the appalling H-1B or L-1 visa
system. They employ the myth that there are not enough highly skilled
technical workers with new skills coming along in the U.S. to
accommodate the needs of industry. It is a convenient myth for the
Republican establishment to cling to.
Even in the current DIFFICULT economic times the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, under Norquist, is demanding visas to import 115,000 techies
per year.
In fact, some of our conservative "saviors" are "meatpacking" American
white-collar middle class jobs into oblivion in the same fashion that
jobs in meatpacking went the way of the buffalo in the 1980s.
Thus, once relatively high-paying blue collar jobs became benefit-free,
low-paying, dangerous jobs that have a turnover rate of 50 percent to
100 percent in 2003. Meatpacking is also the most dangerous occupation
outside police and fire service.
According to an AP report, Tyson Foods is facing cheap labor meltdown
as the Department of Justice discovered that Tyson actively recruits
illegal cheap labor through an employment service. It would seem that
the days of Upton Sinclairs The Jungle are returning to the
U.S. thanks to the corporate mercenary class and feckless politicians.
What is really scary, however, is that "conservative" leaders who
should know better are begging for more H-1B visas. They include
Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Frist is guiding an
increase in H-1B visas through the Senate.
The immigration apologists and the cheap labor club are either largely
ignorant of the facts OR, knowing the facts, they believe that whatever
corporate America wants, corporate America should get and by gosh the
federal government is there to please.
But to call this the "free market"? I dont think so.
Evidently, the pack of them have not read the testimony of Dr. Norman
Matloff before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on
Immigration.
Dr. Matloff is a professor in the Department of Computer Science,
University of California at Davis. His documented and massive study
titled "Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage"
reveals that the U.S. does not have a "critical labor shortage" in
technical areas and that there are enough native-born TRAINED Americans
to fill jobs that may be available.
Furthermore, it is the economic immigrant from places like India and
Pakistan who suffers the most. Everyone with a computer should read the
study, which may be found online. It is devastating.
According to Matloff:
There is a broad consensus that the H-1Bs are indeed exploited in terms
of wages and working conditions. This was found in
the study at UCLA, which found that the immigrant engineers were paid
33% less than comparable Americans
the study at Cornell University, which found underpayment of H-1B
programmers and engineers by 20-30%
my study at UC Davis, finding that immigrant programmers and electrical
engineers were paid 15-20% less than comparable Americans
the report by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which found
that the computer-related H-1Bs were paid a median of $53,000 per year,
far below the national median of $66,000 for this field
the audit done by the Department of Labor, finding that 19% of the
H-1Bs were not even paid the salaries promised by the employers on the
visa application forms
the report by the National Research Council, which found that ''H-1B
workers requiring lower levels of IT skill received lower wages, less
senior job titles, smaller signing bonuses, and smaller pay and
compensation increases than would be typical for the work they did''
articles in respected, pro-business publications such as Forbes
Magazine (''Indian programmers working in the U.S. on temporary H-1B
visas typically earn 25% to 30% less than their naturalized
colleagues'') and the Wall Street Journal (''Recruiting foreign talent
is cheaper than hiring Americans'')
statements by the H-1Bs themselves, who have formed the national
organization ISN (www.isn.org) with a goal of persuading Congress to
reform the program
One need not even use data sets to see the problem. Most H-1Bs are de
facto indentured servants, unable to switch jobs. Thus they cannot
leave for a higher-paying job elsewhere, nor can they negotiate higher
wages with their present employers by threatening to leave. So, they
have lesser opportunities than do normal workers who are free to move
about in the market. Thus it is indisputable, from basic economic
principles, that on average they are making less money than they would
if they had their freedom.
So it is that in the last 20 years the fiction was created that there
is a shortage of American workers to do certain jobs. That fiction
benefited the economic and political elite as the importation of cheap
labor helped the bottom line, voting blocs were created and, for the
most part, states bore the social costs for the federal governments
"big heart."
In fact, we have witnessed the dumping of large numbers of humanity
from Third World cultures for social, economic and political reasons.
This is not class warfare; this is about pointing out how the system
has been warped by the continued misuse of influence and the law in
order to give special privilege to one group of Americans over another.
Lets not mention turning simple justice and the rule of law on its
head.
Why does corporate America import cheap labor using the visa system
while it creates a class of indentured servants imported from other
countries at the expense of the American middle and lower classes? Why
does government approve? The corporate bottom line and the benefits and
contributions accrued to the political oligarchy is why.
Inside the High-Tech Jungle
The case of Siemens, Inc. is revealing. It exposes the big lie
projected by the cheap-labor lobby. It is not merely anecdotal
information, as Matloff and Harvards George Borjas have shown in
their studies on the H-1B visa and various immigration issues that
impact the working class and the taxpayer.
Organizations which have a quantity of documented data include FAIR and
the Center for Immigration Studies. But for those who consider the
latter two biased, they cannot quibble with Matloff and Borjas.
Pick a company, Siemens, Aetna or GE Capital, the royal screwing
continues apace.
Mike Emmons, formerly with Siemens, Inc., told his story on national TV
and on the Barry Farber Show. According to Emmons, his former employer,
Siemens ICN and Tata Consulting, an Indian consulting firm, used the
congressional L-1 visa to replace 20 American computer techies with
Indians.
Specifically, L-1 Intra-company transfer visas were used by Tata
Consulting to bring foreigners from Tata Consulting India to Tata
Consulting U.S.A. These so-called consultants are then sold off to
American businesses, Siemens ICN in Lake Mary, Fla., and San Jose,
Calif.
Emmons states: "Management mandated we train our foreign replacements,
then Americans were shown the door. It was the most demoralizing thing
I have ever experienced." Similar cases at Aetna have recently come to
light as well.
Under the L-1 intra-company transfer visa, consulting companies (mainly
from India) can import as many "American replacement workers" as they
need. There are absolutely NO constraints on the quantities they can
import into our country.
There are no salary constraints, as the H-1b is supposed to have.
The INS provides easy mechanisms to bulk import replacement workers
using the INS blanket petition. "[U]nder the L-1 intra-company
transfer visa foreigners can come into the country and then demand
that current employees train them."
Mr. Emmons is understandably upset. What one does when one is upset, of
course, is to contact ones political representatives to get some
kind of simple justice. This is what happened to Mr. Emmons and others
like him when they petitioned for a redress of grievances.
"For five months, every week, I contacted the offices of U.S.
Representative John L. Mica (Florida District 7) and Senator Bob
Graham. We begged and pleaded with them to help American citizens but
they just turned a deaf ear. They don't care about us, they care about
one thing and one thing only and that is corporate campaign funds and
the possible votes."
Furthermore, "Mica called me in September when my flyer reached a man
whose son had been displaced after he trained his Indian replacement
(at GE Capital). That man wrote Mica with displeasure in his
immigration voting record. Why did Mr. Mica contact me? It's clear now,
to shut us up so he could get reelected and continue to get those
campaign dollars. Representative Mica and Senator Graham know what they
are doing, they have known for quite some time, but helping American
citizens is not their business. Their business is the collection of
campaign funds."
In the economic and political quest for "globalization" or cheap labor
or "diversity" or campaign funds, as the case may be, our elite have
exhibited thoughtless disregard for our national well-being and the
individuals who make up the body politic once known as the American
citizenry.
But what the heck! Mr. Emmons and his 20 co-workers at Siemens are
merely collateral damage in the junk bond world of globalization and
social diversity.
Meanwhile, a computer engineer who wishes to remain anonymous used to
work for the insurance giant Aetna. He wrote: "I'm in the computer
programming field. I'd been with Aetna for 4 years, at about the
midpoint (nowhere near the maximum) of my salary range. In December,
Aetna cut several hundred Information Technical people. We'd been told
that "these positions were being eliminated." Of my group of nine,
three (including myself) were among those let go in December. As of
today, I've yet to land an interview."
Finally he states, "This morning I responded to a blind ad (placed by
an agency) for a programmer with medical claim experience. I received a
reply this afternoon from the recruiter. Take a guess as to the hiring
company. You guessed it, Aetna!"
All this is happening at the expense of American integration, cohesion
and prosperity for the vast majority of Americans who are trying to
hang on to their niche in the middle class. However, there are class
action lawsuits being considered under the RICO statutes.
This is what meatpacking giant Tyson Foods is facing. If the lawsuit is
decided in favor of the former employees of Tyson under RICO, they will
collect TREBLE damages. Perhaps the American programmers and engineers
need to consider something similar against the collusion between the
feds and some of the buccaneers of corporate America.
Behind the Corporate and Federal Blarney
According to Dr. Matloff, behind "The hidden agenda which began in
1997 turned out to be to leverage Congress to increase the yearly quota
of H-1B work visas, under which employers were importing tens of
thousands of programmers to the U.S. each year. The campaign succeeded,
with President Clinton signing the increase into law in October 1998.
Yet in 1999 the industry started calling for even further increases in
the visa quota, which it attained in October 2000."
Matloff adds: "The fact that the industry cries of shortage were
nothing more than a political ploy was illustrated by the fact that
heavy layoffs in the industry began around January 2001 two months
after the industry lobbyists were insisting to Congress that there was
a desperate shortage (and nearly a year after the NASDAQ stock
index started falling). In the economic slowdown of 2001, employers
became even pickier than before."
Notwithstanding, the cheap-labor lobby is still demanding that we
import more H-1B techies.
The H-1B visa holders continue to arrive, but dont blame the
immigrant engineers and programmers. Blame corporate America and the
federal government as they conspire to take advantage of all of us for
their own base reasons.
Footnote 1. Roy Beck, NumbersU.S.A.
Next Time: Part III: Melting Pot Meltdown. How the states, the poor,
the middle class, African-Americans, earlier immigrants are paying for
the failures of our immigration policy vis ` vis the Third World. How
affirmative action and SBA loans benefit immigrants more than blacks.
Why is Congress so sluggish in addressing this most serious problem?
Why do Georgia, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nebraska have to pay for
failures of American foreign policy? How did the U.S. fall into a trap
based on a distorted view of "compassion" for any person from the Third
World who shows up on our doorstep?
To comment, write alden@newsmax.com or visit my Web site at
www.aldenchronicles.com.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Immigration/Borders
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