h1b facts once again

[autonomous at mutualaid.org (autonomy lives)]

Richard Strano said:
> This is not hate the foreiners.
> Our corporations are just plain greedy.
> Americans working abroad are not being used to undermine the
> pay structure of worker in those countries.
> Do you really believe that Americans are brought in to other countries for
> cheap labor?
> Do you really believe that these poor American companies can not find
> qualified programers?
> Give me a break.
> Rick
>

<delurking>

As a former dot.commer that remembers 90% of the developers working on h1b
visas i can empathisize with the feeling that "natives" don't get a fair
share in the job marketplace in corporate america. however, i have to
question the whole anti-h1b attitude. as long as folks continue to rely
for income on big corporations then folks are never going to get a fair
shake as employees. i have found being laid-off actually somewhat
liberating as i now do periodic contracts doing php programming having
freed myself of ASP and Microsoft in the corporate world, while spending
much time developing my own projects, mostly dealing with semantic web
services. perhaps, we should focus on developing services based on
non-corporate solutions, such as open source and free software
contributions. This is where all are equal because it is community driven.
It seems rather self-defeating to want to work for corporate america and
want to develop open source and free software. as one that is earning an
income from developing and coding open source e-commerce solutions i think
that is where the attention should be focused, to hell with the large
corporations and their hiring practices, let's work for ourselves, and
among ourselves include people from outside the borders. basically, all
american workers were screwed by NAFTA and will continue to be screwed
because business is driven by profit margins in the corporate world. will
linux provide a new way for workers to work for themselves and not have to
worry about hiring practices of large corporations? and if it does doesn't
the whole notion of native vs. non-native kinda lose it's meaning?

</delurking>

--salim
autonomous web developer





> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-admin at blu.org [mailto:discuss-admin at blu.org]On Behalf Of
> Federico Lucifredi
> Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 1:38 AM
> To: discuss at blu.org
> Subject: h1b facts once again
>
>
> Hello There,
>     Since the "hate the foreigner" attitude won't quit, I decided to lay
> bare some facts:
>
>     -There are 3.8 million Americans working abroad. Conversely, there are
> about 250.000 H1bs and as many L1s according to a recent Business Week
> article. That is less than 0.1% of the number of people living in the
> continental US for each visa category.
>
>     -The US is already the hardest place on earth for a foreigner to come
> to
> on a work basis, barring Openly xenofobic Japan. As I remarked before, the
> rightist Austrian leader Jeorg Haider got censored by the EU on nazi
> charges
> after he proposed an immigration law for workers in Austria that in fact
> reflects the H1 program.
>
>     -This is also the developed country with the lowest unemployment rate
> among those with a sizable population (> 50 millions).
>
>     The rest of the developed world lives with higher unemployment rates
> without turning on immigrants *even* to the point of establishing H1 as it
> is today. The "undeveloped" world has often to live with unemployment
> rates
> of the order of 20/30%.
>
>     I fully agree when you call loophole the way the L1 program is used
> today. It was not meant for the use comapnies are making of it. But the H1
> program is already the most restrictive employment law for foreigners
> barring those of Japan - to give you an example, if you were among those
> 3.8
> million Americans working abroad (most of them in the developed world), in
> most European countries all that an employer has to do is tell the
> governement that the foreigner has a job and that it will be paid at least
> minimum wage and that's that (no labor law certification of equal wage in
> the job sector, nothing of the sort -- and these permits are not time
> limited unlike the H1s).
>
>     So go right ahead, if the lowest unemployment rate among large
> developed
> nations is not enough for you, you can turn on the 0.2 % of the people
> living in this slice of land so that you can get off on something. I wish
> to
> note that, exactly how it happened for the imports of steel two years ago,
> the rest of the rich world is going to respond in kind. you might
> eventually
> get those 500k  non-immigrants off the payrolls, but you will also see
> some
> of those 3.8 M Americans working abroad flowing back. So much for the
> gain.
>
>     And by the way, as this is also one of the most expensive labor
> markets
> of the world, please note that if The Prophet cannot go to the mountain,
> then the mountain will go to the prophet -- meaning that if you do not
> allow
> for a relief valve on labor costs from coming in, the jobs will pour out.
> It
> is happening, and the more you do this the more it will. India for
> software,
> Russia for engineers and so on. At least with H1s the jobs are still
> *here*.
>
> I am sure Congress will only be happy to oblige on closing the pipe on the
> L1 program -- I know I would in their shoes. But your raving about H1s
> seems
> quite unjuestified and I find it quite tasteless. there are currently 32
> million Americans who are foreign borne. that is 10% of the population.
> You
> are talking about a number of people that are as large as 0.2% of the
> population. If you are concerned about foreign labor, perhaps you should
> wonder how so many "immigrants" do come in, rather than raving about the
> people that are here as "non-immigrants" (and even if they were, they are
> so
> few compared to the actual immigrants!).
>
> Perhaps as a foreigner I should go out hunting for an H1 -- and I assure
> you, I would not get it. The foreigners I know have H1s at above market
> average wages because they are experts or research scientists, not because
> they are selling themselves into slavery.
>
> In history, people in distress have always proved ready to turn on
> scapegoats. As I have remarked before, I hold this country to a higher
> standard (Americans did not turn on the Jews during the depression, the
> Germans did). if you feel that a recession that still maintains the lowest
> unemployment rate of the developed world is too hard for you, knock
> yourself
> out and go after those poor H1s. But please remember, this country does
> not
> produce enough science/engineering/technology brains as a fact (as a
> professor I can tell you that enrollment rates of foreigners on
> higher-level
> degree programs in this country exceeds the number of US nationals -- now
> that is in the science/engineering/technology areas, not in Business wich
> is
> a much more favorite subject of locals. Of course, foreigners come because
> US universities are excellent, but they are also sucked in because not
> enough locals get out of high school with decent math and science.  In a
> recent talk I had with the father of a Freshman, I told the man that I was
> simply astounded a country would toss away 400 billions on weapons when
> the
> high schools are graduating a sizable number of students that cannot speak
> English as if it were their goddamn first language - lets not even speak
> abouth math...but that's another story - and quite a sad one when you
> think
> how much rethoric is wasted speaking of care of children here - time to DO
> something about it). Oh well, I guess I drifted on a subject I feel
> passionate about -- eduaction.
>
> to go back to the bottom line of the discussion at hand: this place is a
> job
> heaven compared to the rest of the world. Honestly, still complaining
> about
> it make some of you look quite spoiled.
>
> -Federico
>
> PS: As I said before, I was hoping we were done on the subject on the
> public
> mailing list. But if you still want to talk politics, please give me some
> clue as to how the high school system can be fixed. Perhaps you could
> write
> your senator about that. Not that the current congresss is likely to make
> labor more expensice or to cut the pentagon's budget, but heck, if we
> gotta
> do some mailing list dreaming....
>
> BTW: The rules for overtime are being revamped by the labor department.
> Several million people are going to be inelegible for it after the cange.
> If
> I were you, I would be a lot more pissed about this piece of change
> occurring at all, much less without legislation....
>
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