Hillary Wanted Increase in H1B Visas and Now: Fury & Fear in Ohio Over IT Layoffs

[amborin]

Hillary Urged Increase in H1B Visas:
The New Zealand Herald

June 1, 2007 Friday

Hillary Clinton's hi-tech sales pitch

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton has been in Silicon Valley trying to cosy up to America's hi-tech sector (), which she believes needs to "hit the restart button on the 21st century".

Lame slogans aside, Hillary is making a clever move. The US IT industry grew rapidly during the presidency of tech-friendly Bill Clinton and like Hollywood the IT sector has a more liberal bent, especially with the latest boom in user-generated internet services.

The last few years have been characterised by a lot of valuable IT work being outsourced to cheaper countries like India and the IT skills shortage has hit the US reasonably hard.

Hillary dangled a fairly big carrot in front of Silicon Valley executives today in the form of increased R&D funding, more IT training and a relaxation of Visa conditions designed to make it easier for foreign software engineers to work in the Valley for longer. Already, over half of Silicon Valley software engineers are foreign born.

Her bag of tech goodies includes:


- Increase the number "H1B" visas to attract more highly skilled workers from overseas.

Fury & Fear Over this in Ohio:

IT Outsourcing

Fury and fear in Ohio as IT jobs go to India

IT workers are training their replacements

Patrick Thibodeau By Patrick Thibodeau Follow

Computerworld | Nov 9, 2015 3:03 AM PT


The IT workers at Cengage Learning in the company's Mason, Ohio offices learned of their fates game-show style. First, they were told to gather in a large conference room. There were vague remarks from an IT executive about a "transition." Slides were shown that listed employee names, directing them to one of three rooms where they would be told specifically what was happening to them. Some employees were cold with worry.

The biggest group, those getting pink slips, were told to remain in the large conference room. Workers directed to go through what we'll call Door No. 2, were offered employment with IT offshore outsourcing firm Cognizant. That was the smallest group. And those....

snip

Offshore outsourcing is having "a fairly strong impact" on IT employment, said Janulaitis. Students coming out of college are facing trouble starting a career "and a lot of that is driven by jobs that are taken by non-U.S. nationals in our economy, and a lot of that is H-1B ," he said.

"Why are we talking about more H-1B visas for people when we have people who are unemployed?" said Janulaitis.

The IT offshore industry relies heavily on H-1B workers to deliver services, and large offshore firms, both in the U.S. and in India, are the largest users of this temporary, non-immigrant, work visa. The issue is getting a little more attention in the unfolding 2016 presidential contest, but it remains to be seen whether this attention will have any impact. ....

snip

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3002681/it-outsourcing/fury-and-fear-in-ohio-as-it-jobs-go-to-india.html

[MisterP]

1. well, the important thing is the donors and some gentry got richer

[revbones]

2. par for the course with her n/t

[malletgirl02]

3. Please inform Paul Kurgman of this nt.

[AzDar]

4. Jesus.

[hollysmom]

5. ooh oooh oooh, I was replaced by an H1-B misapplied person - they had no technical expertise as is

supposed to be required by the program

[Gwhittey]

6. Did you have to train them?

That is adding insult to cutting your head off(which is worse that just injury).

[NWCorona]

7. It should be against the law to have severance and unemployment benefits

Tied to whether or not you train your replacement.

That's just scandalous

[hollysmom]

9. not int he management position but I had to train the people who replaced my staff.

I was offered a job in india if I would take a 1/3 pay cut and they would sell my house and move me to a rented house there with my dog. Or, I could take a 20% pay cut and take a job in Pittsburgh in another field I had not worked in for a few years, I had been to the main office in Pittsburgh, was not thrilled with the town

Only those of us in management were made these offers. The staff trained people and were replaced, the few kept on to do work had their pay cut, their benefits cut. Instead of 3 weeks vacation they got a combined 15 days for sick days or vacation, their choice. Holidays were cut in half, pay was cut, I forget how much and they had to pay more for their health insurance. I took the management layoff of 6 months pay and personal advisor to get another job (ignored him and just waited out the severance). people laid off after me and people not in management, got 2 weeks severance period.

[NWCorona]

8. The Clinton foundation has used this waver as well

[SamKnause]

10. It is an insult to the workers of the U.S.

It is a slap to the face of U.S. workers.