Takahashi article in Mercury News

Date: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 3:21 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1703 -- 6/05/2007 >>>>>

Dean Takahashi wrote a dreadful article for the Mercury News. I complained to
him via email and suggested to him that yellow journalism like that might
explain why less people are subscribing to newspapers. Much to my surprise he
responded with: "tell me your specific beef."

I sent him the following beefs, but he never responded. Perhaps I was more
specific than he expected and there was too much meat to respond to.

Dean,

There are so many things wrong with your article Here are a few of the
specific beefs:

* You only feature the views of people who have a vested interest in
advocating for more H-1B visas. I automatically categorize these types of
articles as either lazy or corporate propaganda. That might not be fair to
you, but of course I don't know you or who influences the information you get.

* You say that CEO Seth Sternberg is a lucky winner because he managed to grab
some H-1B visas. Hurray for him! What about the unlucky losers that will not
get jobs because Sternberg can now hire H-1Bs instead of Americans? I know,
you could care less about Americans who want a home, family, and a middle
class lifestyle but I just thought I would ask the question.

* You call the H-1B system dysfunctional because it doesn't hand out more
visas than the law mandates. That to me seems to prove that as bad as our
immigration system is, it's not dysfunctional. You may not know it, but for
the last several years the CIS has admitted issuing far more visas than the
yearly cap allows. That's what I call dysfunctional!

* You consider "reform" to be anything that increases the number of visas.
How about the Durbin/Grassley or Pascrell bills that seek to end some of the
discrimination and abuse that H-1B causes? Apparently that doesn't count as
reform in your mind -- the only thing that matters is to issue as many visas
as our cost cutting corporations want.

* There is absolutely no evidence that H-1B is used for "immigrants whose
skills are so scarce that they can do jobs for which there aren't enough
similarly qualified U.S. citizens." The fact is that H-1B has no such
requirement, and the other fact is that over 80% of the H-1Bs have ordinary
skills that any college graduate can handle. Many jobs H-1Bs take don't
require college degrees, like system administration. e have a visa for that
and it's not "H-1B", it's "O". Corporations hate "O" visas because they
actually have to prove that the immigrant has extraordinary skills --
something they know is almost never true. "O" visas are no help to companies
who want cheap labor.

* Sternberg's rejection of so many resumes should have given you a clue about
how many potential candidates he has to choose from, and yet he chooses to
hire H-1Bs instead. Doesn't that give you the slightest bit of doubt? I
thought journalists were supposed to be skeptical and yet you bought his story
hook line and sinker. I'll bet you didn't ask him any follow up questions like

1) What specific types of skills is he looking for.

2) What he is willing to pay for them. You say he is willing to pay equally
qualified Americans and H-1Bs the same. I have no doubt that's true -- he
wants to pay all of them below market salaries. So what about that in your
mind justifies hiring H-1Bs?

* I just love this paragraph -- it's straight out of the ITAA manual on how to
say something without saying it, and how to demean opponents by switching the
reader's attention by using sleight of hand tactics.

"Some critics say H-1B hires displace American
workers. At current levels, H-1B visa holders
are 0.07 percent of the American workforce, and
57 percent of them have master's degrees or
higher, according to the National Foundation for
American Policy, a non-profit research group that
favors expanding the H-1B program."

Good one Dean! Stuart Anderson must be very proud of his new student!

Let's be honest about what you are saying here: You are saying that opponents
of H-1B are complaining about a teeny tiny insignificant part of the labor
market. Hahahahahahahqahahah! That's just pure hilarious except for the fact
that naove readers will not be able to discern your deliberate deception.

Let's face some facts -- H-1Bs shouldn't be compared with the entire working
population of the U.S. because typically they take jobs in CS, engineering,
and science. The percentage of H-1Bs in these professions is very large -- so
large I can show that the number of H-1Bs plus the number of college grads is
far larger than the number of new jobs created in these fields. In other
words, we have negative job creation thanks to H-1B.

So much for all your shortage shouting.

Dean, if that rag you work for ever has layoffs, you might want to consider
getting a PR job at CompeteAmerica. Your sad excuse for journalism proves ya
got what it takes to be a shill!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_5974403?nclick_check=1

Takahashi: We need more Andy Groves, Vinod Khoslas - not fewer

By Dean Takahashi
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:05/24/2007 02:27:30 AM PDT

Seth Sternberg feels like he won the lottery. The chief executive officer of
Web instant messenger firm Meebo in Palo Alto has spent many hours coming up
to speed on the H-1B visa program. In April, he and his immigration law
consultants were finally able to secure H-1B visas for two employees in his
16-person firm.
But for every lucky winner, there are a lot of losers in the current
immigration rules that govern how companies can bring temporary workers into
the United States to do highly skilled work. The current H-1B visa system is
ridiculous and badly needs reform. The government should allow more technology
geniuses into the country so that Silicon Valley and the nation can maintain
leadership in technology.

The clearest sign of a dysfunctional H-1B system: The federal government
received more than 130,000 applications in a single day for the 65,000 H-1B
visa slots available for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. And the 65,000
lucky ones can't start work until Oct. 1.

We've heard for years that immigration reform is a priority in Washington, but
only last week was there some progress. A number of H-1B bills have been
introduced and the congressional leadership reached a deal last week with
President Bush as part of a larger, controversial immigration package.
The bills seek to nearly double the number of annual grants of H-1B visas,
which are good for six years. The cap has been stuck at 65,000 for four years.

Immigration is a tough issue because it encompasses everything from national
security to whether undocumented workers are taking jobs away from unemployed
Americans. Nobody wants to address a piece of the problem without addressing
the whole thing. The consequence for the U.S. tech industry has been a
bureaucratic morass that keeps it from adapting to the realities of
globalization.

The tech industry's main concern is the more narrow issue of how to deal with
the smaller group of immigrants whose skills are so scarce that they can do
jobs for which there aren't enough similarly qualified U.S.
citizens.

Sternberg is on the front line of this problem. His company, Meebo, which
makes software that enables consumers to look at their instant messages no
matter where they are, often has to make 100 screening phone calls just to
find a candidate worth hiring. He has 13 open positions and has hired only two
people recently. Last year, Sternberg hired a foreign worker but, without a
visa, that worker had to work outside the country.

Good candidates are rare. Two-thirds of those getting electrical engineering
doctorates in the United States are foreign nationals.
Sternberg believes he should be able to hire candidates who are best
qualified, regardless of where they live.

"It's incredible that, as the CEO of a company, I have had to become
intimately familiar with the details of immigration law," Sternberg said.

CEOs of big companies, such as Mike Splinter at Applied Materials, say that
every person who gets a doctorate ought to be entitled to a green card.
Executives like Splinter and other tech leaders have joined together in
lobbying groups such as "CompeteAmerica."

But Sternberg says that leaves out the very bright foreign students who have
lesser degrees but are brilliant. The proposal would ignore folks, like Bill
Gates, who are technically smart but drop out of college.

Sternberg is willing to pay H-1B hires as much as equally qualified U.S.
workers. That makes the H-1B hires more expensive due to relocation expenses
and the costs of the lawyers needed to bring them here.

Beyond fixing the H-1B program, various tech lobby groups say the government
should expand the number of training visas it gives to recent foreign
graduates, give priority to spouses of H-1B visa holders, and expedite the
processing of highly skilled immigrants applying for permanent residency.
Those "green card" applicants have historically been at a disadvantage
compared with those seeking family reunification. If the government were
better at processing the green cards for skilled workers, companies wouldn't
have to resort to H-1Bs, says Jenifer Verdery, director of workforce policy at
Intel.

Some critics say H-1B hires displace American workers. At current levels, H-1B
visa holders are 0.07 percent of the American workforce, and 57 percent of
them have master's degrees or higher, according to the National Foundation for
American Policy, a non-profit research group that favors expanding the H-1B
program.

Some of the bills before Congress require companies to show that they have
made good-faith efforts to hire Americans. And Sternberg says the government
can use the IRS returns of H-1B visa recipients and other company employees to
determine if the companies are underpaying the immigrants.

"It's critical that the government ensure that no one is cheating the system,"
Sternberg said.

There are other things to criticize about the program, such as the high number
of visas that wrongly go to overseas outsourcing firms. Overall, enforcement
actions are on the decline and the outsourcing problem has been overblown,
according to the NFAP. But if the U.S. can't produce enough engineers and we
don't encourage the most talented tech workers to come to this country, it
will be at a disadvantage to other nations.

"America benefits by bringing talented people here who can make the country
more competitive and create jobs for Americans," Sternberg says. "The more we
have talented people, the better off our economy is."

If today's immigration laws were in effect decades ago, Silicon Valley
probably wouldn't have the benefit of immigrants such as Intel's Andy Grove or
venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Would you say "no thanks" to them if they
showed up on your doorstep?

Contact Dean Takahashi at dtakahashi@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5739.

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