Workers on visas easy to exploit (Good Read)

[OhioChick]

May 11, 2008

Once again cries are arising from the information technology industry that it is facing a huge and desperate shortage of qualified programmers and software engineers ("Long wait for scarce visas," May 2).

To remain competitive - and to maintain America's lead in IT - industry leaders insist they must bring in hundreds of thousands of guest workers from abroad. That's the hype.

The reality is as it has always been: There are plenty of Americans willing and able to fill virtually every open IT position. It's just that American employers don't want to hire them.

Employers don't seek to hire H-1B workers because they are desperate for programming talent they can't find here.

What they really want, to quote Professor Norman Matloff of the University of California, Davis, is "cheap, compliant labor."

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant work visa and is, in fact, a form of indentured servitude.

The H-1B worker is bound to his sponsoring employer much as an indentured servant in colonial times was bound to his master.

An H-1B worker who is fired must find another sponsoring employer or leave the country within 10 days.

Most H-1B workers also hope to qualify for a green card - a process that can take up to six years. But this too requires employer sponsorship, and if an H-1B worker changes employers, he or she must begin the entire process anew.

Needless to say, an H-1B worker has essentially zero bargaining power with a sponsoring employer. (He certainly doesn't want to make his boss angry by telling him to go shove it when the boss insists he work 14 hours a day for eight hours' pay, now, does he?)

And if the H-1B worker has no bargaining power, neither does anyone competing with that worker for the same job.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/letters/bal-ed.le.letters11m4may11,0,640718.story

[fasttense]

1. And who is going to buy their IT crap?

When the American middle class finishes disintegrating, who is left to buy their games, computers and software? Without good paying jobs, there is no consumer market in the US.

India, China, Vietnam and Korea are growing their middle class and expanding their developmental progress by leaps and bounds. But the majority of workers in those countries can't afford to buy the majority of the crap they make. The US consumer market is the largest in the history of the world. That's why everyone wants to ship their crap here to sell. But it is slowly dissolving as the middle class jobs for US citizens slowly move out of the country or go to non citizens.

There is no other consumer market even close to the size of the US consumer market at its peak and likely never will be again. You can thank the bushes for finishing it off.

[treestar]

2. This is the hype

It's all false. Check the law on H-1Bs.

[OhioChick]

3. Since when did any corporation under this administration

follow any laws?

You're right...it is hype.

"To remain competitive - and to maintain America's lead in IT - industry leaders insist they must bring in hundreds of thousands of guest workers from abroad. That's the hype."

[ihavenobias]

4. Uh-huh

Hype is grand claims with no facts or links to support them.

I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. ;)

[babylonsister]

5. Do you have proof it's not happening? Link? ANYTHING except

your opinion? :eyes:

[IronLionZion]

6. I've done 12-13 hours a day for 8 hours pay, 7 days a week

for 6 weeks straight. Fuck Citigroup. Oh yes, and I'm a natural born US citizen and so is the other guy who worked with me. When they were done with us they called us randomly at home one fine day and told us not to come in. Citigroup's Citicard division is definitely the worst client I've ever had.

Being American won't exempt you from being beaten like a rented mule by greedy corporate bastards. They'll use you and lose you.

[tblue37]

7. My daughter's fiance, a highly skilled French chef, came here last year

to be with her. They didn't want to rush their marriage. They wanted time to plan it and save up for a nice one. But the French restaurant he worked in exploited him so terribly that they are going ahead and getting married in a simple JP ceremony this August, much earlier than they wanted to, and then planning to have their nice "wedding" that friends and family can attend sometime next year or the year after.

The restaurant had him locked into a 5-year contract, so that if he left before it was up, he wouldn't be able to work at all. Also, they paid him $5,000/year less than they had contracted for, and they worked him abusive hours.

He and my daughter have been together for almsot three years, and they always planned to get married, of course, but the way the restaurant yanked him around because they figured he had no recourse showed him that he needed to marry her sooner rather than later to protect himself from such abuse. But it is sad that they are being forced by his work visa vulnerabilty to hurry their wedding before they are ready to set up one for friends and family to attend.

Needless to say, he will begin to work his way through the immigration process this year, too, so that he can work here as a legal immigrant rather than on a foreign worker visa.

[Hydra]

8. I know, because I picked said industry to try and advance

All I hear is "no positions"...and yet they are screaming for workers?

Worker here!

That's sort of what I thought.

[OhioChick]

9. I Hear you. n/t

[AdHocSolver]

10. They not only get cheaper workers, but these H-1B workers are as vulnerable as illegals.

A few years back, I worked for a company that was looking to open a factory in China. They brought a bunch of young engineers to their local factory to teach them the business.

One of them confided in me that he had to make good here or he would be sent back to China and pretty much his career would be finished.

That is another reason management likes these H-1B workers. They can threaten to send them back home so the H1-B's will do anything to avoid that and never complain.

However, I realized something from working with this guy. He was not only incompetent, but a jerk as well. It occurred to me that China and India do NOT send their best and brightest to work in the U.S. If the guys I met were any indication, these countries send their mediocre workers here and keep their best and brightest at home.

As for the comment that, when Americans go broke, there won't be any customers for the crap made in China or India, I disagree. A wealthy, albeit limited, middle class is developing in those countries. However, since their populations are so much greater than ours, their "limited" middle class will provide a substantial market for the goods that they manufacture. General Motors built a Buick plant in China a few years ago, and is doing well profit-wise selling cars there.

The lower costs of manufacture in China and India allow these corporations to sell their products at a lower markup and still make a large profit. People don't realize how cheap it is to mass produce many products, and how huge a markup the corporations put on goods for the American market. As an example, a stereo system that sells for $300 in the U.S. probably cost less than $50 to make in China.

Several years ago, I was being trained to repair an electronic product at the local service center of a large electronics manufacturer. They were having problems with a small circuit board for which they charged the customer $30 for a replacement part. I commented to the manager that no way could that part cost $30 (I worked for another outfit and only went there for training so I was bold). He admitted that their repair shop was "charged" $3.00 for the part.

As for the manufacturer I mentioned earlier. They built their Chinese factory, and I read a few months ago that they were downsizing their U.S. plant.