H1B

Follow ups to misc.jobs.misc Why are salaries of software engineers going down when the number of openings is expanding? Three letters, cany you say H1B? or B1. These are the type of visas that foreign companies and American companies are using to flood the market illegally with cheap imports. What can you do? You already know part of the drill 1) Write you congress people expressing your outrage (for both the B1 and H1B programs). 2) Ask your company to see all of the Labor Condition Applicaitons that they have filed for people with H1B visas. 3) Write your local U.S. Department of Labor office, Employment Standards Administration, Wage and Hour Divisions and complain how your company is not paying the highest of either the prevailing wage or the highest wage paid for that job at your company. 4) Do it or find a new career. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>cut here<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< NORT OF THE BORDER A 60 minutes segment, 1993 LESLEY STAHL: Those who oppose NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, argue that it will encourage American companies to go south of the border to replace American workers with cheap, foreign labor. Fact is, our government is already encouraging American companies to do ostensibly that, not south of the border--right here, north of the border, in the good old US of A. At a time when thousands of American computer programmers are having a tough time finding work, some of America's biggest companies are hiring cut-rate, foreign programmers to take their jobs. (Footage of a class in India; office of Jim Schneider; Stahl and Schneider) STAHL: (Voiceover) These college graduates in Bombay, India, are being trained as computer programmers. Soon they'll be assigned by their Indian employer to jobs in the US at top corporations like Hewlett-Packard, Tandem, Unisys. These high-tech migrants are coming through a huge loophole in the immigration law that allows thousands of skilled foreign workers to come here, regardless of the impact on American workers. Jim Schneider, who runs an employment agency in San Francisco, has to compete with those foreign suppliers. Mr. JIM SCHNEIDER (Owns Employment Agency): The American person unfortunately, is being displaced. They're out on the market, they're looking for the next job, they're being displaced and replaced by foreign nationals who can come in and work at a much lower rate than is acceptable. STAHL: You're actually saying, I think, that-that there are computer companies that are firing Americans in order to bring the lower-wage foreigner in ... Mr. SCHNEIDER: That's correct. STAHL: ...that there is a deliberate attempt here to--to take the Americans off the payroll and bring in someone who they'll pay half or less than half. Mr. SCHNEIDER: That's correct. (Footage of Indian Classroom; Demetrious Papademetriou) STAHL: (Voiceover) How cna this possibly be legal? Well, that loophole we mentioned was originally created to give special visas to foreigners, foreigners whose unique talents or skills couldn't be found anywhere else. But according to Demetrious Papademetriou, who used to be the US Labor Department's top immigration official, the imported programmers now using that special visa don't fit that bill. Mr. DEMETRIOUS PAPADEMETRIOU (Former Immigration Official): These are basically run-of-the-mill people with a degree and some skills, and it seems to me that it is important that we distinguish between people who are truly skilled--who have unique, specialized skills--and people who simply provide labor. STAHL: (Voiceover) And no matter who they are, the people providing that labor are supposed to do it only temporarily. When you say temporary, is there a time limit? Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: Well, there is a time limit. It's usually five or six yeras. STAHL: Temporary is years--six years? Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: Precisely. And I think your're.. STAHL: Now come on. Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: ...you're implying--it's a ... STAHL: That's a joke. Everyone's going to laugh. (Footage of Indian classrom; Papademetriou) STAHL: (Voiceover) But the biggest joke of all may be the sections of the law requiring that these foreign workers be paid the prevailing wage--just what an American would make for the same job. Why is that a joke? Because it is often completely ignored and never enforced. Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: An employer makes an affirmation that they are paying these individuals the prevailing wage. The department simply looks at the application for completeness--has it been signed, have all the--you know, the X's and I's been dotted and all that? And then, basically, with the sev--within seven days, agrees to the individual firm bringing in the-the -the foreigners and.. STAHL: So-so no one checks to see if they are paying the prevailing wage... Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: Absolutely. STAHL: ...at all. So companies certify they are paying it and don't, and they know they're not going to get caught. They know no--there's no penalty, so they just lie on their forms. Is that fair to say? Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: It is entirely fair to say that some firms are certainly doing that. (Footage of Papademetriou and Stahl talking; documents; Schneider) STAHL: (VOiceover) The firms lying on their forms are often those foreign suppliers.. They're commonly called body shops. This is a list of applications for the special visas filed last year by one India-based body shop. The computer esxperts had all sorts of different job titles and assignments all over the country. Yet when it came to salaries, virtually all of the 600-odd applications listed exactly the same amount: $26,500. Now is that the prevailing wage for an American who would be doing computer programming? Mr. SCHNEIDER: No, absolutely not. It's--it's certainly much lower than what a taxpayer in America would make in any similar position. STAHL: So that m--any--any government officail looking at that application should know by instinct that there's something wrong here. Mr. SCHNEIDER: They shold know. They shold know. STAHL: But every single one of these applications was approved. Mr. SCHNEIDER: Right. That's correct. (Footage of Papademetriou) STAHL: Is there any office in the government, in the Labor Department or anywhere that's checking on this? Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: Abs--absolutely not checking. (Footage of Indian classroom; Indian worker) STAHL: (Voiceover) Another thing the government doesn't check is exactly how many foreign computer programmers are here at any given time. Some estimate the number is a high as 100,000, but there's really no way of knowing--they mover around all the time. That's the way the computer business operates, both foreign and American programmers go from one temporary assignment to another. This Indian programmer agreed to tell us his story if we concealed his identity. Unidentified Indian Worker: When I came down to US, I first went to Michigan. STAHL: Michigan? Indian Worker: Mm-hmm. There was Saint Joseph, Mitz