Sen. Sanders' Amendment to CIR
Sen. Sanders' Amendment to CIR
Date: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 2:51 AM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1699 -- 5/30/2007 >>>>>
The Senate voted in favor of an amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration
Reform bill that was introduced by Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of
Vermont. He won a victory by a 59 to 35 vote.
The Sanders amendment will impose a fee of $5,000 to each H-1B visa. Money
collected from the fee will be used to fund college scholarships for American
students. Currently each H-1B visa has a $1,500 fee for that purpose .
Originally Sanders wanted the fee to go to $8,500 per visa but the Senate
didn't go for it.
Many people support this kind of legislation in the hopes that imposing fees
on H-1B will act as a poison pill for employers. Statements like this are
especially encouraging:
Robert P. Hoffman, a vice president of Oracle, said the higher
fees represented "an onerous tax increase on America s most
innovative companies."
No doubt employers will oppose any fee on H-1B visas, but the Sanders
amendment is a long way from a poison pill that will kill the CIR or H-1B.
To understand why, let's look at some numbers.
On average employers save about $12,000 to $20,000 a year in wages by hiring
H-1Bs. Assuming the employer sponsors a foreign worker for six years
(3 year visa plus a 3 year extension), this is how much is saved:
12,000 x 6 = $72,000
That $72,000 figure is a lowball figure that doesn't include the higher
potential salary savings of $20k per year and any other savings on benefits,
taxes, and social security. With the $5,000 fee employers will still save at
least $67,000!
As you can see, the Sanders amendment is a long way from being a poison pill
that will discourage the hiring of H-1Bs. An additional $3,500 will just be
considered another cost of doing business. Sanders has good intentions but he
just doesn't quite get the H-1B issue, and he obviously got his education
button pushed.
This hyperbole from EDN is almost amusing when the numbers are put into
perspective:
Companies need not panic just yet: although the amendment has
been agreed upon, the controversial bill itself is still being
debated in the Senate and has not yet been voted on.
There will be beneficiaries if the amendment survives and it won't be just
students -- the increased fee will be some lucrative booty for the National
Science Foundation who will manage the cash and dole out scholarships. It's no
coincidence that the NSF is also one of the loudest promoters of the H-1B
program.
Corporate propagandists will also benefit since they will be able to use the
amendment for propaganda purposes -- something that Sanders probably didn't
anticipate even though he provided them with all the ammunition they need.
Count on the shills to claim that there is a shortage of educated Americans.
This from the New York Times:
With the scholarships, he said, "young Americans can get the
education they need for these jobs, so employers don t have
to go abroad."
As explained in my previous newsletter, it's impossible to predict which
amendments will survive both the House and the Senate. My bet is that the
Sander's amendment won't because employers aren't going to tolerate an
additional $3,500 a visa to come out of their pockets. Internetnews explained
the situation:
Sanders' chances of getting his amendment ultimately into law
still faces a steep climb, as do most of the provisions being
debate in the Senate. Whatever the Senate passes would still
have to pass muster with the U.S. House and the inevitable
conference committee that will thrash out the differences
between the two chambers.
Senator Sanders has an excellent essay on his website. It explains the
relationship between wages and supply and demand, and describes very clearly
how immigration affects the supply of labor. Unfortunately Sanders misses the
boat when it comes to high tech. Not only does he agree that there may be
labor shortages in high-tech he proposes to solve the problem by increasing
the supply of workers. Nice idea if there was a shortage but thanks to H-1B
that's not true -- we have a surplus of workers.
I do recognize that we have a serious problem in terms of
labor shortages in a number of areas. In my view, our major
strategy must be to educate our own students in these areas
so that they can benefit from these good-paying jobs.
Articles Included
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199702018
Amendment To Hike H-1B Fees Passes In Senate
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199701809
Bill Could Force H-1B Employers To Fund U.S. Scholarships
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/washington/25immig.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Senate Votes to Keep Plan to Make Immigrants Legal
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3680096
Senate Votes to Hike H1-B Visa Fees
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6446711.html&
Senate passes H-1B visa reform bill amendment
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/washington/27immig.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Many Employers See Flaws as Immigration Bill Evolves
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=274864
Article Printed from Senator Sanders Website - Sanders.Senate.Gov Immigration
-- 05/22/2007
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http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199702018
Amendment To Hike H-1B Fees Passes In Senate
The fees are earmarked to fund a new scholarship program for American students
pursuing degrees in fields related to mathematics, technology, and health
care.
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek May 25, 2007
URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199702018
The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed an amendment that could more than triple
the fees employers pay for each H-1B visa petition if the controversial
immigration reform bill being wrangled in Congress is signed into law.
The amendment sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had originally proposed
raising fees from the current $1,500 to $8,500 per H-1B visa.
However, the version of the amendment that passed the Senate 59 to 35 calls
for an increase in fees to $5,000 per H-1B visa.
The fees are earmarked to fund a new scholarship program for American students
pursuing degrees in fields related to mathematics, technology, and health
care.
In a statement, Compete America, a coalition of U.S. tech companies, called
the passage of the Sanders amendment "an outrageous and onerous tax increase
on our nation's most innovative companies, and could make the H-1B program
cost-prohibitive, especially for smaller businesses."
Compete America predicts the amendment will "accelerate outsourcing and
undermine U.S. economic growth."
Supporters of the amendment, including U.S. IT worker advocacy groups,
however, characterized the amendment as a step in the right direction for
making it more difficult for companies to displace American workers with
lower-paid foreign talent.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199701809
Bill Could Force H-1B Employers To Fund U.S. Scholarships
Currently, the U.S. charges a fee of $1,500 for each H-1B petition that gets
earmarked to fund training and education programs for U.S. workers.
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek May 24, 2007
URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199701809
Tech employers complain that changes to the H-1B visa program proposed in the
Senate's immigration reform bill will make the program too restrictive.
But wait, there's more.
Another new amendment being proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), slated
for Senate debate today, seeks to impose a new $8,500 surcharge on employers
for each H-1B petition filed. The fee would be collected from employers for
each new H-1B worker, H-1B visa renewal, or sponsorship of an H-1B non-
immigrant applying for a green card, or permanent residency.
Currently, the U.S. charges a fee of $1,500 for each H-1B petition that gets
earmarked to fund training and education programs for U.S. workers.
But the new fee being proposed by Sanders would be used to establish and fund
a new National Science Foundation merit-based scholarship program for 65,000
American students per year. Under the proposal, qualified students pursuing
associate, undergraduate, or graduate degrees in mathematics, engineering,
computer science, nursing, or medicine could receive up to $15,000 per year
toward their education.
A similar idea of raising H-1B fees to $5,000 to fund free tuition for
American students pursuing tech-related degrees was proposed to lawmakers last
fall by Kim Berry, president of the IT professional advocacy group Programmers
Guild.
In an e-mail to InformationWeek, Berry said that while pleased about the
Sanders proposal, he worried that other tech advocacy groups, such as the
IEEE, didn't have enough time to evaluate Sanders proposal in order to endorse
the amendment in time for the Senate debate this afternoon.
Stay tuned.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/washington/25immig.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
May 25, 2007
Senate Votes to Keep Plan to Make Immigrants Legal By ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON,
May 24 -- The Senate on Thursday turned aside the most significant challenge
to the comprehensive immigration bill now under debate, voting 66 to 29 to
keep a provision that offers legal status to most of the nation s 12 million
illegal immigrants.
The legalization program is, by far, the most contentious part of the bill.
But it is also an indispensable element of the fragile bipartisan compromise
that the bill embodies.
Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, who offered the proposal to
eliminate the program, called it "amnesty, pure and simple." He said it would
act like a magnet, encouraging more illegal immigration.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the chief Democratic architect of
the bill, defended the program. To obtain legal status, he said, illegal
immigrants would have to pay fines, pass background checks and, in most cases,
hold jobs.
"Legalization is important for our national security," Mr. Kennedy said.
"We have to know who is in the United States. Legalization is important in
terms of our economic prosperity. And legalization is important for the
families. Do we think we re going to deport children -- 3.5 million American
children who have parents that are undocumented?"
President Bush endorsed that argument. Referring to illegal immigrants, he
said, "You can t kick them out." That solution is "just not real," he said
Thursday at a news conference, where he urged the Senate to pass the
immigration bill.
The bill, a product of secret negotiations between the White House and a dozen
senators, has survived four days of impassioned debate on the Senate floor. It
is uncertain whether it has gained enough momentum to survive continuing
attacks from both ends of the political spectrum.
Senators return home on Friday for a weeklong recess over the Memorial Day
holiday. Many said they expected a barrage of questions from constituents
upset with the legalization program.
But architects of the bill said they were pleased.
One of them, Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said: "It s been a
good week. The bill is moving forward."
A co-author of the bill, Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, said, "We
are still together, and we are moving forward," despite opposition from "bomb-
throwers" on the right and the left.
Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said the architects of the
bill were confident that they would prevail when the Senate resumes work next
month.
"We ve got a long, tough road ahead of us," Mr. Specter said. But he added,
"We see essentially no enormous roadblocks, no poison pills, no killer
amendments ahead that we can t deal with."
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said: "Time is on our
side. The longer we have to discuss the bill among our colleagues, the bigger
the buy-in."
Critics, Mr. Graham said, will feel better if they have time "to vent their
frustrations about the bill and to amend it."
In other action on Thursday, the Senate approved an amendment that would
increase fees imposed on employers who hire highly skilled temporary workers
with H-1B visas. The money would be used to finance scholarships for American
citizens studying mathematics, engineering, health care and computer science.
The vote was a victory for Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont,
who had proposed the amendment, which was approved 59 to 35.
With the scholarships, he said, "young Americans can get the education they
need for these jobs, so employers don t have to go abroad."
The Senate narrowly rejected two proposals that could have upset the deal on
immigration. In both cases, the vote was 49 to 48.
One proposal would have ended a guest worker program for less-skilled workers
after five years.
The other would have encouraged state and local officials to help enforce
federal immigration laws -- its purpose being to prevent cities from offering
sanctuary to illegal immigrants.
Many Republicans see the guest worker program as an essential element of the
bill.
But the proposal to end it after five years looked as if it might pass.
During the roll call, Mr. Kennedy persuaded another Democratic senator, Daniel
K. Akaka of Hawaii, to switch his vote, thereby preserving the program.
Defending the guest worker program, President Bush said, "I would much rather
have people crossing the border with a legitimate card, coming to work on a
temporary basis, than being stuffed in back of an 18-wheeler."
The proposal encouraging state and local agencies to help enforce the
immigration laws was offered by Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota.
It said that state and local employees could ask people about their
immigration status whenever the employees had "probable cause" to believe that
the people were not here legally.
"Several cities have passed ordinances or issued executive orders forbidding
local law enforcement to even ask the question as to whether a person is in
the United States lawfully," Mr. Coleman said.
In adopting such "gag orders," Mr. Coleman said, cities prevent their
employees from finding and arresting illegal immigrants who may go on to
commit violent crimes.
Senator Salazar denounced the proposal, saying it would force schoolteachers
and hospital emergency room workers to become "the cops of our immigration
laws."
Mr. Kennedy said Mr. Coleman s amendment would deter illegal immigrants from
reporting crimes or cooperating with the public health authorities.
For example, he said, illegal immigrants with tuberculosis might be reluctant
to seek treatment, and they could infect United States citizens.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3680096
Senate Votes to Hike H1-B Visa Fees
By Roy Mark
May 25, 2007
The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to increase H1-B visa fees for employers to
$5,000 per application, $3,500 more than the current fee. Proceeds from the
fee hike would be used to fund scholarships for Americans seeking degrees in
math, technology and health-related fields.
The 59-35 vote came on an amendment to the current immigration bill being
debated in the Senate. The new fee would be imposed on new applications and
renewals.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who sponsored the amendment, said the fees raised
could fund 65,000 scholarships of $15,000 each to American students.
Sanders originally sought a fee of $10,000 per application.
"What many of us have come to understand is that these H-1B visas are not
being used to supplement the American workforce where we have shortages but,
rather, H1-B visas are being used to replace American workers with lower cost
foreign workers," Sanders said on the floor of the Senate.
The Independent from Vermont spared no words for the tech sector that opposed
his amendment while still seeking to raise the H1-B visa cap from the current
65,000 per year to up to a maximum of 180,000.
Major supporters of increasing the cap include Microsoft, IBM and Intel, who
heavily depend on H1-B workers with advanced degrees. All three tech titans
claim there is a shortage of American workers to fill the positions.
"To win favor in China, Microsoft has pledged to spend more than $750 million
on cooperative research, technology for schools and other investments,"
Sanders said. "If Microsoft and other corporations have billions of dollars to
invest in technology -- in China, these same companies should enough money to
provide scholarships for middle-class kids in the United States of America."
Compete America, which includes Microsoft and Intel as members of its
coalition of corporations, educators and trade groups pushing for an increase
in H1-B visas, called the Sanders amendment an "outrageous and onerous tax" on
tech.
"The Sanders amendment will accelerate outsourcing and undermine U.S.
economic growth," the group said in a statement. "This ill-conceived measure
is flatly anti-competitive and is a clear attempt to gut the H-1B visa program
and will make it much harder for U.S. business to support the Senate bill."
According to Compete America, its member companies "already engage in efforts
at every level of education that significantly dwarf the potential scholarship
fund created by this amendment."
Sanders is not the only senator with serious reservations about increasing the
number of H1-B visas available to the tech sector.
In April, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced
legislation to overhaul the entire H1-B system to give priority to American
workers and to crack down on employers who misuse H1-B visas.
The legislation would require all employers seeking to hire an H1-B worker to
certify they have made a good faith effort to hire American workers first and
that the H1-B visa holder would displace an American worker.
Under the bill, employers must first advertise the job opening for 30 days on
a Department of Labor Web site before applying for H1-B workers.
Grassley and Durbin also want to mandate U.S. employers pay H1-B visa workers
prevailing U.S. wages. In addition, the bill would authorize and fund
Department of Labor audits of any company using the H1-B program.
Sanders' chances of getting his amendment ultimately into law still faces a
steep climb, as do most of the provisions being debate in the Senate.
Whatever the Senate passes would still have to pass muster with the U.S.
House and the inevitable conference committee that will thrash out the
differences between the two chambers.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6446711.html&
Senate passes H-1B visa reform bill amendment
By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- 5/28/2007 Electronic News The price
American companies pay for foreign workers could be on its way to becoming
significantly higher.
Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of an amendment to the Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Act of 2007 that hikes up the fee a company pays for an H-
1B visa from $1,500 to $5,000 each.
Companies need not panic just yet: although the amendment has been agreed
upon, the controversial bill itself is still being debated in the Senate and
has not yet been voted on.
H-1B visas have been the subject of contentious debate for some time now, as
the passes for skilled foreign workers have proven to be increasingly coveted
commodities in recent years. Last month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) received enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally
mandated cap of 65,000 for fiscal year 2008 just one day after starting the
receipt of applications, marking the fifth year in a row that the cap has been
reached before the start of the fiscal year. For fiscal 2007, it took under
two months for the cap to be reached.
The bill currently under consideration in the House and the Senate would raise
the H-1B cap to 115,000, and apply the current 20,000 cap exemption to those
with a master's degree or higher from an institution of higher education in a
foreign country, not just U.S. advanced degrees. The bill would also raise the
limit on employment-based visas from 140,000 to 290,000 per year.
The cap hasn't always been so low: Congress did raise the cap to 195,000 in
2000 to accommodate the U.S.'s technology boom. By the 2004 fiscal year,
however, the cap was back down to 65,000, and it has not been changed since.
Not surprisingly, a number of companies have expressed support for the bill to
up the yearly quantity of visas to bring in foreign talent -- the amendment
agreed to yesterday, however, may well subdue their enthusiasm.
Senator Bernie Sanders, the Independent congressman from Vermont who proposed
the passed amendment, had no hesitation in admitting his intention of
substantially lessening the appeal of hiring foreign workers for U.S.-based
jobs.
"When it comes to the H-1B visa, our corporate friends tell us that Americans
can't do, or are too dumb to do [U.S.-based jobs]," Sen. Sanders said in an
outspoken statement posted May 22 on his official website. "We hear over and
over again from the large multinational corporations that there are jobs that
Americans just won't do, and that we need foreign workers to fill those jobs."
"Well, that's really not quite true. If you pay an American or any person good
wages and good benefits, they will do the work," Sanders added.
Name-checking executives including former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina
and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Sanders said that "greed, rather than love of
country, has become the driving force behind corporate decisions."
"They shut down plants with high-skilled, well-paid American workers, and move
to China, where they pay desperate people 50 cents an hour," Sanders said.
" They have the nerve to come before the U.S Congress and tell us that they
can't find skilled workers to do the jobs that they need. Give me a break."
Versions of the bill remain under debate in both the House and the Senate.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/washington/27immig.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
May 27, 2007
Many Employers See Flaws as Immigration Bill Evolves By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- Employers, a major force in the national debate over
immigration, say their discontent with the bill shaping up in the Senate has
deepened over the last week because of changes that could make it more
difficult for them to hire foreign workers.
High-tech companies, like Microsoft and Oracle, and employers of lesser
skilled workers, like restaurants and construction contractors, already had
qualms about the original version of the legislation, forged in three months
of talks between the White House and a dozen senators.
But from the point of view of many employers, the bill has become worse in the
last week.
E. John Krumholtz, director of federal affairs at Microsoft, said senators
were well intentioned and "really wanted to help us" find the skilled
professionals needed to design computers and write software.
But Mr. Krumholtz said: "The deal is worse than the status quo, and the status
quo is a disaster. We are troubled by the grand bargain."
The deal was announced on May 17, and the text of the legislation became
available two days later. The Senate began debating it on Monday.
Mr. Krumholtz said, "The package would have benefited from greater scrutiny
-- the hearings, review and analysis that occur in the normal legislative
process."
Supporters of the bill had a good week on the Senate floor. On Monday, they
got 69 votes to begin consideration of the bill. They mustered 66 votes on
Thursday in favor of the most contentious provision in the bill, which would
offer legal status to most of the nation s estimated 12 million illegal
immigrants.
The bill calls for a "merit-based system" of awarding green cards, which gives
greater weight to education and job skills.
But Daryl R. Buffenstein, a former president of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association whose clients include many Fortune 500 companies, said:
"The reforms in the Senate bill do not help the business community. Indeed,
they hurt the business community. Under the current system, employers file
petitions with the government to show why a particular employee is needed and
should get a green card. The Senate bill would eliminate the employers
ability to petition for specific workers."
The bill would increase the number of visas for highly skilled workers, a goal
long sought by the high-tech industry. Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of
Vermont, won adoption of an amendment that would increase the fee charged to
employers for such a visa, known as an H-1B, to $5,000, from $1,500. The money
would be used to finance scholarships for American citizens studying
engineering, mathematics, computer science or health care.
Robert P. Hoffman, a vice president of Oracle, said the higher fees
represented "an onerous tax increase on America s most innovative companies."
Companies that employ lower-skilled workers also objected to changes made on
the Senate floor.
The bill, as drafted by senators and the Bush administration, would have
allowed American companies to bring in 400,000 lower-skilled workers on two-
year visas. The number could have increased to 600,000 in response to
employers needs.
The Senate lowered the limit to 200,000 and eliminated the automatic
adjustment for market conditions. Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North
Dakota, said the foreign workers would put "downward pressure on American
wages."
R. Craig Silvertooth, director of federal affairs at the National Roofing
Contractors Association, said employers were dismayed by the Senate s action.
"It s a travesty," Mr. Silvertooth said. "It eviscerates the temporary worker
program, which was one of the central reasons for the business community to be
involved in the immigration debate."
Employers strongly support the provision that would offer legal status to
illegal immigrants.
With a legal work force, employers say, they could avoid fines and raids by
immigration officers. Such raids have disrupted operations at some companies,
forcing them to recruit and train replacement workers.
Jeffrey S. Passel, a former Census Bureau demographer who works at the Pew
Hispanic Center, estimates that more than 7 million of the 12 million illegal
immigrants are employed. They account for nearly 5 percent of the nation s
civilian labor force, with higher shares in some occupations: 29 percent of
roofers, 24 percent of agricultural workers and 25 percent of construction
laborers.
But employers said they were still deeply concerned about a provision of the
Senate bill that would require them to check federal and state databases to
verify that employees were eligible to work in the United States. The
requirement applies to all current and future employees, whether they are
citizens or not.
If the employee verification system had even a small error rate, it could
cause big problems for large companies like Wal-Mart, which has 1.3 million
employees.
John F. Gay, senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association,
said the verification system should be phased in, to make sure it could handle
the large number of inquiries that would be made.
Farmers, by contrast, are generally pleased with the bill, which has many
provisions tailored to their needs. Under the bill, the government would
create a special program to legalize the status of illegal immigrants working
in agriculture, and it would speed the approval of employers petitions to
bring in seasonal workers.
"The bill would secure the essential labor force in agriculture today, and it
would go a long way to meet our need for seasonal labor in the future,"
said Luawanna M. Hallstrom, a tomato grower in Oceanside, Calif., who is a
vice president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers.
John H. Young, director of the New England Apple Council, said the new
procedure for seasonal farm workers would be "more reliable than the current
system, which is so cumbersome that you can t be sure you ll have workers when
you need them."
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http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=274864
Article Printed from Senator Sanders Website - Sanders.Senate.Gov Immigration
-- 05/22/2007
"The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act addresses the concern all of us have
about securing our borders, something I strongly support. It addresses the
need to hold employers accountable for hiring illegal immigrants, something
the Bush administration has neglected. It addresses the contentious and
difficult issue of how we respond to the reality that there are some 12
million illegal immigrants in this country today, and carves out a path which
eventually leads to citizenship, which I also support.
What concerns me," Senator Sanders said, "are provisions in the bill that
would bring low-wage workers into this country in order to depress the already
declining wages of American workers. With poverty increasing and the middle-
class shrinking, we must not force American workers into even more economic
distress."
"Randel K. Johnson, Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told The
New York Times on May 21, "We do not have enough workers to support a growing
economy. We have members who pay good wages but face worker shortages every
day." Mr. Johnson and many of the other big business organizations and
corporations that helped craft this legislation are not being quite accurate
when they make statements such as this. The major economic problem facing our
country today is not that we don't have enough workers to fill good paying
jobs. Rather, the problem is that we don't have enough good-paying, livable-
wage jobs for American workers -- and the situation is getting worse.
"Over the last six years, 5.4 million more Americans slipped into poverty,
with the national minimum wage remaining at a disgraceful $5.15. And, by the
way, Mr. Johnson's organization, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, opposes raising
that minimum wage. With more than 5 million more Americans slipping into
poverty, where are all those good paying jobs that these workers can't seem to
find?
"Over the last six years, nearly 7 million more Americans have lost their
health insurance. Where are all those good jobs that provide benefits like a
strong health insurance package?
Where are all those good jobs that Mr. Johnson talks about when millions of
Americans are losing their health insurance completely or are asked to pay
substantially more for inferior coverage?
"Over the last six years, since President Bush has been in office, some 3
million American workers have lost their pensions. If all of these good jobs
are out there how come more and more workers are slipping into poverty, more
and more workers are losing their health insurance, and more and more workers
are losing their pensions?
"From the year 2000 to 2005, median household income declined by $1,273, and
for five consecutive years median household income for working age families
has gone down. The real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers
has declined steadily; they earned $27,060 in real dollars in 1979, $25,646 in
2005. While women have done better in recent years, real median weekly
earnings for males has actually gone down since 1979.
"Despite Mr. Johnson's assertion, the economic reality facing our country is
that the middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the gap between
the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider.
One of the major tenets of free market economics is the law of supply and
demand. Under that basic economic proposition, if an employer is having a
difficult time finding a worker, as Mr. Johnson suggests, then his solution is
to provide higher wages and better benefits. That's what the free market
economy is supposed to be about. That's what supply and demand is all about.
That's how you attract the workers that you need: better wages and better
benefits.
"How can it be, therefore, that there is a supposed scarcity of workers out
there at the same time that wages and benefits are going down? That doesn't
make a lot of sense to me.
What this legislation is not about is addressing the real needs of American
workers. It is not about raising wages and improving benefits. What it is
about is bringing, over a period of time, millions of low-wage temporary
workers into this country, with the result that wages and benefits will be
depressed even further.
"Let's talk about what really exists in our economy today. According to the
"May 2005 Occupational Wages and Estimates" by the Vermont Department of Labor
- the latest such report available - lists the ten largest categories of
employment in Vermont and the wages that workers earn who do that work.
The occupation with the most employment in Vermont is that of cashier, people
who work at retail stores and who take in money. The average wage for this
category of workers is $8.71 an hour, and many of those workers have
inadequate or no health care at all. These figures have likely gone up in the
last few years, but I suspect not very much. Are these the "good wages" that
the Chamber of Commerce is referring to?
"In that same survey, the second largest job category in Vermont is that of
retail salesperson. That mean hourly wage was, as of two years ago, was
$11.88, better than cashiers earn, but still less than $26,000 a year. On and
on it goes. Book-keepers: $14.14 an hour; waiters and waitresses: $8.97 an
hour; secretaries: $12.91 an hour; office clerks $11.17 an hour; janitors and
cleaners $10.51 an hour.
"Here is a list of jobs available today in northern Vermont and in the
Littleton, New Hampshire area, as posted by the Vermont Department of Labor.
Flagger, full time $10 an hour; dispatcher, $11 an hour; home care attendant,
$7.53 an hour; store clerk, $8 an hour; construction laborer,
$11 an hour; receptionist, $8-10 an hour; shipping, $11 an hour; machine
operator $8-10 an hour; and on and on it goes.
"Compare those numbers to the livable wage, as determined by the Vermont State
Legislature, for a single person with no children. It is $14.26 an hour. For a
single parent, one child, that number is $21.40 an hour. Single parent, two
children, $25.59 an hour. Two parents, two children and one wage earner,
$24.89.
"So here is my concern about the immigration legislation. At a time when
millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and have seen a
real cut in wages or benefits, this legislation would bring hundreds of
thousands of lo- wage workers from other countries into the United States
every year. If wages are already this low in Vermont, what happens when more
and more people are forced to compete for these jobs?
"Sadly, in America today, more than 25 percent of students drop out of high
school, and in some minority neighborhoods that number is even greater.
What kind of jobs will be available for those young workers?
This is not legislation to create jobs, raise wages and strengthen our
economy. This is legislation to lower wages, and increase corporate profits.
This is wrong and is not an approach that we should be taking.
"Corporate leaders are telling us why they want more and more foreign workers
to come into this country to compete with American workers. I find it very
interesting that a few years ago, during the debate over trade policy, they
had another message. According to an Associated Press article on July 1, 2004,
Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "urged
American companies to send jobs overseas," and said that "Americans affected
by offshoring should stop whining." Mr. Donahue told the Commonwealth Club of
California that "one job sent overseas, if it happens to be my job, is one too
many. But the benefits of offshoring jobs outweighs the cost."
"Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, said in January of 2004,
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." Her company has
shipped over 5,000 jobs to India, outsourced almost all of their notebook PC
design, production and logistics to Taiwan, and manufactures much of their
products in China. Ms. Fiorina may have had a point. A few years ago, she lost
her job as CEO due to poor performance. Unlike the thousands of jobs she was
responsible for shipping overseas, Ms. Fiorina walked away with a $21 million
golden parachute. Hewlett-Packard, among many other corporate leaders in
outsourcing, just coincidentally happens to be one of those corporations most
active in this immigration debate. In other words, if they're not shutting
down plants in this country and moving them abroad, they are fighting to
displace American workers here by bringing foreign workers into this country.
"Another big supporter of bringing more foreign workers into this country is
Microsoft. Here's what Microsoft's vice-president for Windows engineering said
in Businessweek in 2003: "It's definitely a cultural change to use foreign
workers. But if I can save a dollar, hallelujah."
Four years ago, Brian Valentine, a Microsoft senior vice president, urged his
managers to "pick something to move offshore today."
And Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer has said, "Lower the pay of U.S.
professionals to $50,000, and it won't make sense for employers to put up with
the hassle of doing business in developing countries."
"What is interesting about corporate America's support for the immigration
legislation is that their arguments now distinctly contradict the arguments
they made when they told us how good outsourcing is for this country and how
good the North American Free Trade Agreement and permanent normal trade
relations with China would be. What hypocrisy! One day they shut down plants
with high-skilled, well-paid American workers, and move to China, where they
pay desperate people 50 cents an hour. On the next day, they have the nerve to
come before the U.S Congress and tell us that they can't find skilled workers
to do the jobs that they need. Give me a break.
"We all know what's going on here. Greed, rather than love of country, has
become the driving force behind corporate decisions. While corporate profits
are at their highest share of Gross Domestic Product since 1960, up more than
90 percent since President Bush took office, median earnings are at their
lowest share since 1947. While millions of workers are working longer hours
for lower wages, the CEOs of major corporations now earn more than 400 times
what their employees make. Today in America, the top 300,000 Americans earn
nearly as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans combined. Today in
America, the richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent and
we now have the most uneven distribution of wealth and income of any major
nation on earth.
"We hear over and over again from the large multinational corporations that
there are jobs that Americans just won't do, and that we need foreign workers
to fill those jobs. Well, that's really not quite true. If you pay an American
or any person good wages and good benefits, they will do the work. Yes, it
will be difficult to attract an American worker to work, in say, a meatpacking
house if the pay is 24 percent lower today than it was in 1983. But, guess
what? In 1980, when the wages of meatpacking workers were 17 percent higher
than the average manufacturing sector wage, because they had a strong union,
American workers were prepared to do that job.
There are thousands of American contractors in Iraq today risking their lives
in one of the most dangerous places in the world. They are there doing these
dangerous jobs because they are being paid well to do that work.
"I've talked about the crisis in terms of low-wage jobs. Now let me say a few
words about the problems facing our country in terms of high-wage jobs.
While our corporate friends bemoan the lack of skilled professionals, and want
to bring hundreds of thousands more employees into this country with a
bachelor's degree, an M.A. or a Ph.D, earnings for college graduates were 5
percent lower in 2004 than they were in 2000, according to White House
economists. And when it comes to the H-1B Visa, our corporate friends tell us
that Americans can't do, or are too dumb to do, the following jobs.
Information Technology Computer professionals; University professors;
Engineers; Healthcare workers; Accountants; Financial analysts; Management
consultants; Lawyers; Architects; Nurses; Physicians; Surgeons; Dentists;
Scientists; Journalists and editors; Foreign Law advisors; Psychologists;
Technical publication writers; Market research analysts; Fashion Models; and
Teachers in elementary or secondary schools.
"I find it beyond absurd for anyone to claim that we have a shortage of
lawyers in this country. I find it beyond belief that we can't find enough
Americans willing and able to be teachers, psychologists, journalists, or
accountants.
"I do recognize that we have a serious problem in terms of labor shortages in
a number of areas. In my view, our major strategy must be to educate our own
students in these areas so that they can benefit from these good-paying jobs.
Incredibly, at a time when we have a major shortage in nurses in this country,
some 50,000 Americans were turned away from nursing schools. What is the sense
of that? We should be expanding nursing education substantially and not
depleting the supply of nurses from the Philippines and other countries. At a
time when we have a significant shortage of dentists in rural areas, we should
be increasing the number of dental faculty in this country and training
Americans to become dentists. While there is a dispute about whether or not we
have a shortage in information technology jobs, there is no doubt that we
should make sure that enough Americans are educated in math and computer
science as is possible.
"The bottom line is that we have to take a very hard look at our educational
system and, among other things, make college education affordable to every
American, and increase our focus on math and science.
How absurd it is that over the last many years college and graduate schools
have become less and less affordable and now when we don't have the
professionals we need, some believe the long-term solution is to simply bring
in professionals from other countries.
"So as the debate on the immigration bill continues, I am going to be doing
everything that I can to make sure that any immigration reform legislation
lifts wages up and provides increased educational opportunities.
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