National Association for the Employment of Americans

Date: Monday, June 23, 2003 2:54 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

People have been clamoring for an organization that can unite American
workers to fight the job destruction that is occuring throughout the
nation. Enter the NAEA - The National Association for the Employment of
Americans at www.NAEA.us.

The article below is an inauguration party for an organization that
will focus on political activism in order to save what's left of the
American middle class. I'm proud to say that I was one of the founders
of NAEA and I hope that this is the beginning of a national coalition
to fight for our jobs.

I urge you to support NAEA by joining it. Benjamin Franklin said, "If
we do not hang together, we shall certainly hang separately!" You now
can decide whether to hang or to fight.

I should clarify that many of the board members of NAEA have their own
websites that are independent of the NAEA and may or may not be
integrated into NAEA. No decisions have been made if any part of
ZaZona.com will be moved to NAEA. Until that happens I still need your
donations to keep things running.

Support NAEA by joining, but please support my efforts also. Without
your financial help I cannot continue publishing newsletters and
upgrading the ZaZona website.

And one more thing: This newsletter will continue to be separate and
independent from NAEA until further notice. NAEA doesn't necessarily
support or condone all the opinions expressed within the newsletter.

http://www.statesman.com/business/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/business_e36f6a3c747d6160002b.html

Techies see new threat: foreigners on L-1 visas

Workers facing layoffs in a slumping market are spurred to action

By Julia Malone

WASHINGTON BUREAU

Monday, June 23, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Already short on jobs, some American high-tech workers
are mobilizing against a growing threat that they will be replaced by
foreign workers arriving on a once-obscure visa.

Across the country, U.S. workers who once protested that H-1b visa
holders were displacing them, now are focusing on the growing use of
the less-restrictive L-1 visa to bring bargain-priced foreign labor to
major corporations.

Even in a U.S. job market that sank after the high-tech bubble went
bust, the number of L-1 visas has risen and is now estimated at 325,000
temporary workers, who are allowed to stay between five and seven
years.

For employers, the L-1 has growing appeal because it is far less
regulated than the H-1b worker visa, which requires certification that
American workers will not be displaced as well as pay that matches the
prevailing wage.

Moreover, the number of H-1b visas per year is capped. Starting in
October, the limit for H-1bs will drop from 195,000 to 65,000 annually.
L-1 visas have none of those restrictions and no cap.

The most controversial of those visas go to a handful of consulting
firms based in India, where high-tech workers are plentiful, English is
spoken and salary expectations are low.

Infosys Technologies Ltd. said it had 1,760 L-1 visa holders, up from
425 in March of 1999, according to Securities and Exchange Commission
filings. Wipro Ltd. said it has 1,150 workers with L-1s now, compared
with 321 two years ago.

Once transferred here, these L-1 employees are contracted out to run
computer operations for dozens of major companies. Many multinational
companies argue they depend on the L-1 to bring new technologies and
new operations to the United States.

Among those who have "outsourcing" contracts are Hewlett-Packard Co.,
Sun Microsystems Inc., and Siemens Industries, in addition to state
operations in New Mexico, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Dell Computer Corp., which has been criticized for transferring work
such as tech support to its own overseas facilities, says less than
one-tenth of 1 percent of its 21,100 U.S. employees are here on an L-1
visa.

But the trail of layoffs in high tech is a bitter one for U.S. workers.
Software engineer Judy Shaw learned late last month that her entire
unit of more than 30 workers at Cutler-Hammer, a Pittsburgh division of
Cleveland-based Eaton Corp., was to be terminated by year's end.

The company announced that Tata Consultancy Services, one of the
largest of the Indian companies operating in the United States, would
be taking over her team's projects. A senior company executive
announced the contract, adding that it would save $1 million a year,
Shaw said.

Gary Klasen, a spokesman for Eaton, said last week that hiring Tata was
based on more than money.

"I'm not speaking about cheaper labor," he said. "I'm speaking about an
overall goal to remain competitive in quality, cost and technology."

Klasen said that Eaton was rehiring some of the high-tech workers for
other posts "if their skills and capabilities match the jobs that are
available."

Shaw, who telecommutes from her home in Justin, was not among the few
who qualified. And experiencing the second layoff in as many years has
spurred her into activism.

She is among a growing number of high-tech workers who are telling
their stories on Internet sites, knocking on Congressional doors,
organizing groups and planning demonstrations.

Glenn R. Jackson, a laid-off tech worker from Dawson, Ga., last week
launched the Internet-based National Association for the Employment of
Americans, with partners on both coasts, to build a grass-roots
campaign against work visa programs.

The message is beginning to be heard in the nation's capital.

Prompted by workers laid off by a Siemens facility at Lake Mary in his
Florida district, Rep. John Mica concluded that the expanded use of the
L-1 "was a gray area of law," his spokesman Gary Burns said. Mica, a
Republican, became the first lawmaker to introduce legislation aimed at
curbing the L-1.

Also last week, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, announced he would hold a
hearing this summer on L-1 visas.

And the Homeland Security Department, which oversees work visas, has
ordered a probe into whether bringing in high-tech workers to provide
basic services for other corporations is an abuse of the L-1 program --
originally designed to allow international companies to bring their top
managers and a few company experts to assist their U.S. divisions.

"My understanding of L-1 is that, no, that is not a legitimate use" if
the workers are out-sourced to another company, said Christopher
Bentley, a spokesman for the department's Bureau of Citizenship and
Immigration Services.

Further, Bentley said, the L-1 visa holder must be an intra-company
transfer of a worker with "special knowledge" of the company's
products, management or procedures. "We're not talking about people who
are just Microsoft Windows experts," he said.

Girish Surendran, resident manager of immigration and human resources
for Tata, or TCS as the company's American division is called, defended
his company's use of the L-1.

"It's a misconception is that TCS contracts employees to other
companies or to third parties," he said. "When we go to a total
outsourcing contract with any company . . . the company has selected us
to do the job because of the expertise that TCS carries with us."

He declined to say how many L-1 visa holders are on its payroll.

juliam@coxnews.com

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