Lou Dobbs - The Great American Giveaway

Date: Monday, August 29, 2005 12:46 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

by Rob Sanchez
August 29, 2005 No. 1323

For those of you that are fretting that you missed last Friday's Lou Dobbs show called "The Great American Giveaway" - fret no more because the video clip is now online for you to watch.

It's been a long time since the H-1B issue was on TV but this short report was almost worth the wait.

Go to this page to watch the video:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/MediaClips.htm

Be sure to let Lou Dobbs know that you would like to see a follow up story on this report because reporter Bill Tucker got stonewalled when he asked the Dept. of Labor why they won't make the LCAs for 2006 available. The Dobbs show and the American public deserves a better answer than what they got.

The Lou Dobbs contact page is at:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9

Email him at: LouDobbs@cnn.com

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LOU DOBBS TONIGHT

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

Aired August 26, 2005 - 18:00 ET

ROMANS: Coming up, critics say the U.S. Labor Department is hiding good paying technology jobs from U.S. workers. We'll have a special report.

ROMANS: Coming up, And why the government is keeping tens of thousands of available, high paying jobs away from unemployed Americans. And you won't believe who's first in line for these jobs.

COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: An outrageous discovery tonight within the Department of Labor: There are tens of thousands of jobs that won't go to unemployed Americans. That's because the Department of Labor is reserving them for H-1b Visa holders.

Bill Tucker reports.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unemployment in the high-tech sector remains stubbornly in double digits. But out-of-work software engineers and computer programmers need not look to the government for help. Even though the Department of Labor currently is job postings for almost 52,000 jobs, most of which are for high tech positions. That's how many applications have been filed by companies seeking to hire foreign workers holding H1-B visas. The programmers guild wants the Labor Department to post the jobs to Americans can see who's hiring, but that can't happen according to the Department of Labor, because the law doesn't allow it.

A spokesman for Labor told us that, quote, "we do everything that the law allows us to do." Going on to add, "the department didn't write the law. Congress did." Under the law, companies looking for H1-B visa holders have no obligation to hire American workers.

KIM BERRY, PROGRAMMERS GUILD: The first step in helping American get jobs is to not give away 65 to 85 thousand jobs per year. They know they're doing this. They acknowledge they're doing this. Why don't they speak out and say we don't like doing this. We think it's wrong. We wish Congress would take action.

TUCKER: Those out of work programmers and software engineers do get some help from the government by way of unemployment. And if they can prove their jobs were lost because of trade, they get money for retraining.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: So we're left with a vicious cycle. While companies hire more foreign nationals, fewer and fewer qualified Americans remain active in their careers in high tech and are forced instead, Christine, to take jobs in carpentry and healthcare as we've profiled so many times on this show.

ROMANS: So many times, unfortunately. Who can fix it? I mean, this is a serious problem. So, who has the ability to fix it?

TUCKER: Department of Labor wants to back away from this very quickly. And they say, look, Congress can fix this. So, what needs to happen now, somebody in Congress needs to pick this up and say before we offer these jobs to foreign nationals, we ought to make available the data at least, to Americans to see if they want the job or are qualified to do it.

ROMANS: There should be plenty of Congressmen and women who have constituents who have lost their software jobs and engineering jobs, and you could probably get a few votes lobbying for something like that. All right. Bill Tucker. Thanks, Bill.

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