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H-1B Visa Holders Not The Best & Brightest! |
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Wednesday, 30 April 2008 |
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Remember we reported that AT&T was trying to worm out of the agreements made to the Union and the American worker. That AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson was blaming the American education system for not producing qualified candidates to perform telecommunications work.
We brought to the attention of our Members’ that CEO Stevenson did not mention that the IT, Call Center, and Tech jobs they are offering pay thousands of dollars below what the standard rate is, that’s why they were off-shored in the first place. It’s all about the race to the bottom of the wage scale and diverting attention away from their greed. Corporate America continues to insult our intelligence, they need to be honest and come clean, and admit that their only concern is the short-term profit they can pull out of their customers on the backs of their employees. A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies demonstrates that they plan to continue to insult our intelligence as they race to the bottom of the wage scale: "A report released yesterday by the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) posits that most of the workers hired under the H-1B visa program do not possess optimum technological skills. Authored by University of California-Davis computer science professor Norman Matloff, the study indicated that the wages paid to technology workers who receive H-1B work visas tend to barely exceed the prevailing wages that federal law requires employers to pay these workers. CIS also reports that most of the workers receiving the technology employment visas work either at entry level or just above it. It deduces that most of these foreign workers are not the finest in their fields and therefore do not serve as evidence that the H-1B visa program has brought many technological innovators to U.S. shores. "In pressuring Congress to expand the H-1B work visa and employment-based green card programs, industry lobbyists have recently adopted a new tack," Mr. Matloff wrote. "Seeing that their past cries of a tech laborshortage are contradicted by stagnant or declining wages, their new buzzword is innovation." He said that while workers from abroad may not show unique technological proficiency, one motive compels the industry to press federal officials to expand the number of visas they may utilize. "Because they're cheap," he said. He noted two studies, both commissioned by Congress, which indicated employers admitting that they did not pay H-1B recipients as much as they paid Americans. Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said he agreed with the conclusion that those hired under work visa programs tend not to exceed their native-born counterparts in skill. "The companies are not interested in attracting the best talent," he said. "They're really using the visa as a cost-cutting mechanism. If you wanted to get the best people, you would offer more than the average wage." U.S. Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have introduced legislation to remove loopholes in the law allowing some employers to avoid paying the prevailing wage to H-1B workers. Their bill would also prohibit an employer from hiring someone on a work visa within 90 days of a layoff. Mr. Matloff says it is early to tell whether the entirety of the bill stands a chance of becoming law." In unity there is strength, Roy Hegenbart
President
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