Judge Rejects H-1B Visa Injunction 442
theodp writes "Judge Faith Hochberg has denied a preliminary injunction sought by the Programmers Guild to put a hold on a controversial 'emergency' rule change by the Department of Homeland Security to permit foreign students to work continuously in the US for two-and-a-half years after graduation without an H-1B visa. Hochberg indicated she failed to see how an increased labor supply could result in wage depression for engineers and computer workers. That seems disingenuous, since in Andaya v. Citizens Mortgage Corporation, Judge Hochberg recently saw first-hand how a US employer got away with paying an H-1B computer engineer as little as $15,000 to do a job with a 'prevailing wage rate' of $41,000. In that case, Hochberg ruled against Filipino H-1B visa holder Almira Andaya, arguing that 'nonpayment of wages as listed on the H-1B visa petition ... does not raise a substantial question of federal law.'"
welcome to the country (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to the country of unlimited possibilities ... ... to get ripped off!
Really, both the H1-B Visa holders and US employees are at a loss here.
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Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it interesting that Slashdotters and the posted articles tend to be quite libertarian on many issues, with one of the exceptions being protection of the tech jobs market. Isn't it a bit hypocritical or am I missing something?
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it interesting that Slashdotters and the posted articles tend to be quite libertarian on many issues, with one of the exceptions being protection of the tech jobs market. Isn't it a bit hypocritical or am I missing something?
What you're missing is that open borders are more libertarian than the H-1B system, which supposedly serves to create an underclass of workers with much less leverage to get reasonable (compared to other people here) pay.
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd mod parent down, but I'd rather explain why I disagree. In what follows, "you" refers to "libertarian Slashdotters", not necessarily to the parent.
You say "open borders are more libertarian than the H1-B system", which is true, but a generous H-1B program would mean a more open border than what we have now. The grandparent is correct, that it's hypocritical to oppose a step in what you claim is the "right" direction.
You say a generous H-1B program would "create an underclass of workers" -- but a truly open border would be even worse in this respect, since it would drastically increase the number of U.S. resident programmers willing to work for bottom dollar.
And the elephant in the room here is that visas are irrelevant in this case. I can't think of a job that can be more easily offshored than computer programming. If you tightly restrict immigration of programmers into the U.S., they'll all set up shop in their home countries, where they can charge even less due to lower cost of living.
And if you as a programmer don't think you're going to be seriously competing against China- and India-resident programmers in a few years, you haven't been paying attention.
I say, open the borders, let everybody in, in every profession. It'll depress our wages, but at least it'll keep immigrant workers spending their money in *our* economy, and hopefully some of them will decide to become citizens and come to expect our standards of living.
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Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Insightful)
Or to put it another way: to make stuff, you can either bring the workers to where the factories are, or vice versa. US immigration policy prevents the labor from moving ... so the factories move to where the labor is.
It's futile to restrict labor while allowing free flow of goods.
Tech jobs are an extreme case: there are no raw materials, there is no factory, the products are nothing but data bits. Moving the jobs elsewhere is a piece of cake, so restricting immigration is utterly pointless.
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When "free trade" includes a race to the bottom in wages, working conditions, environmental standards, product quality, and the maximization of external costs, "free trade" is not good for everyone.
When folks in Germany or Japan can build a better car for a lower price then U.S. automakers, while paying employees a good wage, giving them good working conditions, and keeping the environment r
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It could get better a whole lot faster if fair trade was implemented as a guiding principle of free trade. Trade is not free if the system is corrupted, by producing products and services in countries where the majority of people can not afford to buy them and then exporting those products to country where people can only afford to buy them until their ability to purchase those goods is crippled by the importation of those products. Stupidity driven by the greed of a minority who can not see beyond importi
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You say "open borders are more libertarian than the H1-B system", which is true, but a generous H-1B program would mean a more open border than what we have now. The grandparent is correct, that it's hypocritical to oppose a step in what you claim is the "right" direction.
IIRC, this particular change wasn't made "properly".
You say a generous H-1B program would "create an underclass of workers" -- but a truly open border would be even worse in this respect, since it would drastically increase the number of U.S. resident programmers willing to work for bottom dollar.
No, "underclass" as in "fewer legal options". My understanding is that a H-1B comes with requirements about always having a job (and maybe requirements that the employer fill out extra paperwork?), this makes it a bit harder to go to a different employer if you're being treated like crap.
And if you as a programmer don't think you're going to be seriously competing against China- and India-resident programmers in a few years, you haven't been paying attention.
I've heard that some companies are finding that the language and time-zone barriers involved often make this totally not worth it.
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard that some companies are finding that the language and time-zone barriers involved often make this totally not worth it.
Because they're doing it wrong. You need to outsource the project management and a level of QA too, you can't go half-way.
Once you've got enough that they can effectively run the project on their own time in their own language, all that's left to do in the States is a final QA check to make sure what was created matches the requirements.
Programming isn't magic. There's nothing about it that makes US programmers better than foreign programmers. If you've been paying attention to the US school system, you'd notice that there is quite a lot that makes foreign programmers superior to US programmers. There's a reason most Linux programmers aren't from the US.
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I have NO problem with bringing an Indian over here when we have a SHORTAGE in a field
You will ALWAYS have a shortage in the field when employers want to sift through 100,000 applicants and find just one who is absolutely best for this job (or so they think.) In other words, they want the 0.001% of Earth's geniuses gathered from the entire planet.
This is a problem because there is no simple criteria of who is fit to do this and that. If you dig trenches, anyone who can dig a trench qualifies, and it's
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Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Informative)
I've worked with offshore programmers in both China and India. Time zones make it difficult, but the Indian company moved their working hours so there'd be more overlap. China had swing shifts going. Getting someone to talk to wasn't hard.
Understanding them was difficult. I found the Indians to have better English, both in terms of grammar AND accent.
Both produced working code and very, very good technical documentation.
--Mike
I think you're missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
H1B's would not depress wages if they made the simple change that the H1B visa holder could change jobs at will. Right now, H1B wages are depressed precisely because the visa holder will be deported if they quit.
"Hey boss! I found out that minimum wage pays more than you pay!
Oh, sorry about that. Let me discuss your feelings with the IMS.
Oh dear, where did my 'valued' employee get to?"
The system right now pits the Visa holder
Re:I think you're missing the point (Score:4, Informative)
As a H1B visa holder, let me just squash this myth right here: H1B visa holders can quit and change jobs at will. If you quit, you have 60 days to find a new job before you are asked to leave the country. Most people I know find a job first and then leave. And there are no binding contracts or such associated with the visa. And there's only minor paperwork involved when changing jobs. So yeah, your above-mentioned scenario is total hogwash.
But hey, don't let me and my facts get into your way of perpetuating anti-immigration propaganda.
B.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's not hogwash.
I've worked for employers who do this routinely.
But let's talk about the process. If a visa holder wants to leave, he must first find another employer willing to accept (a) H1B's (which eliminates all but large businesses (b) H1B transfers (which eliminates even more companies).
If you are an H1B, and you make noise about leaving, your employer simply calls the IMS and you have a few days to leave the country.
Let's be real here... if H1B visa holders had freedom of movement, then their wages would be no different than prevailing wages. The fact that you have skilled professionals from overseas working for $25-50K (I made more than that out of college 30 years ago) either says that (a) the wage supply is too large (which undercuts the arguments for H1B's) (b) there is an economic barrier people with H1B's that prevents them from exercising their rights.
I don't have an ax to grind here, and I think that there really should *not* be a barrier for skilled people to come into the United States, but I think it benefits everyone to eliminate the H1B and simply allow any highly skilled person to enter the United States. I don't see the downside, provided they have the same ability to negotiate wages as people who live here.
Re:B.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
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In your case, perhaps. It's not universally true, however.
Re:I think you're missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
H1B visa holders can quit and change jobs at will.
Sounds like you are not applying for a green card. Most H1B visa holders are looking for green cards. The process takes at least 3 years - probably more now with all the DHS bullshit. In order to get a green card, your employer has to sponsor you. If you change jobs, that means you change employers which means starting the green card application process all over again. Since H1B visas (last I checked) can only be used for up to 6 years max, changing employers after the first year or two puts the green card at risk. Once the H1B visa expires, all green card application paperwork is terminated.
Re:I think you're missing the point (Score:4, Informative)
After the I-485 has been filed and pending for over 180 days and the I-140 has been approved, the employee can switch jobs as long as it's in a similar position. It's also possible to recapture the priority date by having another employer file for PERM and I-140 if the old I-140 has been approved and not been revoked by the previous employer.
As long as you have an approved PERM and/or I-140 it's fairly easy to keep extending the H-1B indefinitely beyond the 6 year period till your I-485 gets approved. You can also choose to work on EAD instead of H-1B if the I-485 application is pending.
The biggest hiccup in the Green Card process is the per country limit of 7% of the quota which keeps applicants from large countries like India and China waiting in line indefinitely while applicants from most other countries get approved a lot sooner because they are not affected by the per country quotas.
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H1-B is seen as a potential path to citizenship, and always has been. It's intended to result in immigration of skilled labour.
There are alternate programs available via things like Nafta which are NOT intended to result in immigration. TN-1 Visa is an example. I've worked in the U.S. on a TN-1 visa.
TN-1 is good for a year, and allows for unlimited renewal. It does not however allow one to apply for a greencard, and does not simplify the immigration process in the least; rather it complicates it if that is
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Insightful)
I say, open the borders, let everybody in, in every profession. It'll depress our wages, but at least it'll keep immigrant workers spending their money in *our* economy, and hopefully some of them will decide to become citizens and come to expect our standards of living.
Caught between a rock and a hard place. If we employ protectionism, jobs will get offshored and that screws us by putting downward pressure on wages at home. If we open the borders, the downward wage pressure is the same and we're screwed. Either way, we're screwed. You're right that having people here keeps more money in our economy, but that's like saying, "well they put a boot in our ass but at least it wasn't a steel-toed boot."
Basically, thanks to globalization and the world being 'flat' and all that, our standard of living is going to get reduced to the lowest common denominator worldwide one way or the other. So, we're fucked, because as long as we adhere to a growth-based economy and as long as population worldwide is growing, we're headed inexorably toward a standard of living like India and away from one like, say, Iceland. Viva la globalization!
If there's any solution, it probably involves draconian protectionism. Protectionism usually hits rich people hardest because it fucks big companies (small companies serving local markets do OK without globalization), so as long as the rich and the big corporations control our politics it ain't happenin.
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Yes, maybe we will have a standard of living like India, but not because we've gone down in our standard of living... it's because they will have come up. India has grown very well in the last 15 years, and so have we. I believe this illustrates that a rising tide can raise all ships. A prosperous India is in everyone's best interest, esp as a counter-balance to China.
Also, you are incorrect, protectionism does NOT hit rich people the h
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Basically, thanks to globalization and the world being 'flat' and all that, our standard of living is going to get reduced to the lowest common denominator worldwide one way or the other.
Funny thing is that this isn't actually happening. Developed countries continue to grow their GDP, the entire world GDP is growing, while at the same time hundreds of millions of people are being lifted out of absolute poverty in developing countries.
If truly needed give them Green Cards! (Score:2)
Open the boarders - but require these truly need professionals be given Green Card. Improve the labor pool. Also hold the payscale up. Because now they are competing fairly.
Today outsourcing is about coders not developers. In the US, we are more inline with developers - they think about the project and come up with their own ideas and improve the project. Coders just follow instruction and nothing more.
In the last century, this conversation would be about craftsmen and assembly workers. The first work
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Informative)
I'd mod parent down, but I'd rather explain why I disagree.
Good. Moderating a post down simply because you disagree with it is an abuse of the moderation system - you may notice that there are no "-1, Wrong" or "-1, I Disagree" options.
However... (Score:4, Funny)
I'd mod parent down, but I'd rather explain why I disagree.
Good. Moderating a post down simply because you disagree with it is an abuse of the moderation system - you may notice that there are no "-1, Wrong" or "-1, I Disagree" options.
However, there is the nebulous "Overrated" which is basically used the same way. Overrated is generally used by Slashdot mods as the "your opinion sucks and I'm modding you down for it" option.
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As a former potential H1B inmigrant, I mostly agree with you.
Everything you say _is_ true. You are only missing the part that it's too late now.
In my case, now I have a much better job than what I could hope for in the US, but in different countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Of course, that is a plus, if you are a Latin American, because working in the US would imply being treated as a second class criminal periodically. I lie to think of me as a productive memberof society, though.
For other peopl
The US already has wage distortion. (Score:2, Insightful)
The US has a "shortage" of trained nurses thanks to H1-B abuse for years. The hospitals (strained for money thanks to nonpayment by illegals who use the "emergency room" as standard care) looked for a way to cut wages, so now the average nurses' wage is around $20,000/year with a ton of imported nurses that barely speak the language and were trained in countries where the standard is lower. My aunt is a victim of this, she was forced out of her old job when the hospital she was had to close down due to ille
Re:The US already has wage distortion. (Score:5, Informative)
Your post is almost 100% bullshit political conjecture about 'illegals,' corporate american, and employment. BTW, RN salaries here:
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_HC07000001.html [salary.com]
Yeah, they make 60k, not 10-20k.
Re:The US already has wage distortion. (Score:4, Informative)
Try looking around anywhere in the South. It's a different story here.
Of course, we have hospitals in the red left and right due to abuse by illegals, too. Parkland Memorial in Dallas is being abused, over 70% of their maternity-ward births to illegals now - and that doesn't even count the unpaid bills of all the OTHER abuse of the system.
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It's nice to throw in terms like "open borders" to voice your opposi
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Funny)
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it IS possible to fall somewhere between 'Pinko Commie' and 'Right-Wing Nutjob'.
yeah, but don'tcha just hate those Pinko Nutjobs.
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:5, Funny)
They took our jobs!!!
Everyone on the pile!
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I'm for low wages AND low prices.
Right now the corporations have bought the government and we are legally prevented from purchasing inexpensive drugs ($.10 vs $5.00), clothing (+20-30%), sugar (+500%), computer products ($10 vs $500), movies ($2.49 vs $20). They want to *make* the products for $.50 and then have artificial laws passed putting american citizens in jail or subjecting them to financial ruin if they try to get around those artificial mutiliations of capitalism.
The executives and corporations e
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I've seen the complaint many times. The problem is that in the US their is a shortage of IT education. Most universities have CS programs but as you said yourself CS is not about programming or IT, and yet we encourage people who want to program or do IT to get CS degrees. What we really need are vocational IT degrees.
No one would hire an Electrical Engineer when all they wanted was an Electrician, so why do companies hire Computer Scientists when they want IT people? When I was an undergraduate I saw thre
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doesn't matter how fast the coders churn out the code... the real slower down of defence coding are the testing and QA... all the paperwork required for QA traceability is mind boggling... especially when things are in maintenance... or the customer is getting antsy about taking ownership and arguments explode as to whose paying for the rework before it gets into ma
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Did you just, ummm, pass the Turing test?
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my finger is that small, you insensitive clod! -- the "mythical" girl on Slashdot
How d'ya get anything done with one-inch fingers?!?
Don't complain (Score:5, Insightful)
a controversial 'emergency' rule change by the Department of Homeland Security to permit foreign students to work continuously in the US for two-and-a-half years after graduation without an H-1B visa.
A good percentage of you here on /. voted for those chuckleheads. So big surprise when they turn around and dick you by making it easier for your employer to replace you with someone making cardboard slum wages. And even if the next president cuts it off the day they take office, the people already here will be able to stay to middle of their term.
Nice.
Funny how the rules on the war on terror manage to line up with corporate interests, isn't it? Just hilarious.
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I don't remember ever voting for anyone in the Department of Homeland Security nor ever having the option of voting for anyone in the DHS.
Who really built Silicon Valley? (Score:5, Interesting)
Last month I asked the aging Bob Johnsonâ"former CTO of Burroughs Corporation when it was a leading mainframe company in Minneapolis where he developed the magnetic ink you see on the bottom of your checksâ"what he thought caused the loss of the Midwestern high tech leadership to the coasts, and he said it was the financial dominance of the coasts.
That squares with what I observed while at Control Data Corporation/Cray Research, Inc.
The reason Bill Norris and Seymour Cray were able to start CDC thence Cray Research was because they violated SEC regs and went around selling stock at PTA meetings, making a lot of middle class people retire very comfortably. My late father bought some Cray stock early on which helped greatly with his retirement.
When I was at CDC in Arden Hills, MN attempting to deploy the mass market version of the PLATO network with Internet-like capabilities (the system that Ray Ozzie (Bill Gates' replacement at Microsoft) cut his teeth on) in 1980 the primary resistance was from a middle management that, due to the financial press' hostility toward Norris's vision of a society disintermediated by computer networking, small high-tech farms and locally produced and consumed essentialsâ"had itself grown hostile to Norris.
My proposed solution is simple to state but will perhaps require a war to institute:
Replace all taxes on economic activity with a tax on net-assets, assessed at their in-place liquidation value, at the risk free interest rate (which according to modern portfolio theory is the short-term US Treasury rate) so as to extract all economic rents from the private sector, and then, to prevent public sector rent-seeking in pork-barrel politics, disperse those funds evenly in a dividend to all citizens, as the beneficiaries of the land-trust called the United States.
That will not only stop the vicious centralization of power in the private and public sectors, but it will clarify the role of immigrationâ"it is a dilution of the benefits intended for the Posterity of the Founders of the land trust called The United States of America.
Article Summary is Misleading (Score:2)
The Judge's reasoning is based on the principle of "standing"-- whether someone is actually injured and therefore is a proper person to sue. Since the plaintiffs are by their own admission "unemployed or underemployed" they have no ACTUAL INJURY which gives them standing to sue. The case would probably have been decided the other way if the plaintiffs had been well-paid and lost their jobs to immigrants, because such facts would have let the judge *grant* them the standing required.
I wonder whether it wa
FAIL! (Score:5, Insightful)
she failed to see how an increased labor supply could result in wage depression for engineers and computer workers.
She says:
in no sense could "wage depression through the economic forces of supply and demand" rise to the level of justiciable injury, rather than the "conjecture or hypothetical."
Instead of assuming the judge is an idiot, why not favor the much more likely scenario that the suit failed to show how the plaintiffs would be harmed and to what degree. They are claiming they are would be harmed by having their salaries reduced, when in fact they are "employed" or "underemployed". You can't claim you'll be harmed by having you salary reduce if your salary is already zero. It is not the judges job to "see" how harm could be done. It is the plaintiff's job to demonstrate how harm will be done. If they cannot do that, the judge's hands are tied.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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To get this injunction they needed to show that they would suffer a "concrete and particularized" damage if the injunction wasn't issued. The judge in this case found that 1) "Now we have to compete against more people for jobs!" isn't a "concrete and particularized" injury and 2) Even if it was, it still wouldn't be something that you deserve an injunc
Less H-1B's, more and faster citizenship (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of H-1B indentured servitude, gilded as it may be, we should fast track such people for citizenship. Any country that can make America's marginal tax rates look good or otherwise sufficiently pisses off their people DESERVES to lose their best and brightest. America has traditionally been the common meeting place of the world's best and brightest and I'd hate to see that change.
But the big corporations that give $megabucks to the Democratic and Republican parties, slightly more to whichever is dominant at the time, really like the H-1B system so I don't expect much to change. The fast-track citizenship idea is from National Review.
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Naw, there's a better solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Justlook at the way unemployment is going. The last thing we need are more workers.
The Programmers Guild has proposed a superb idea. Put the H1-B visa up for aution, rather than a lottery. This is a much more fair system, for a system that is supposed to bring in talent that isn't here in the U.S.. And it generates revenue for the U.S..
It's funny that the so-called "Free Market" advocates are against such a free market idea.
H1B's for her office... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's start accepting H1B's for lawyers and judges. I guarantee she will change her tune then.
This begs the question then;... (Score:2)
This begs the question then of who has paid whom how much money (American currency)..?
Fuck. (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't find a fucking job skilled or unskilled right now, how can this possibly help?
New Zealand solution (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly (Score:2)
Just a couple years later someone dropped me an E-Mail asking me about my experiences with Romanians. The prices he had been quoted from the cont
Open US Borders Now (Score:4, Informative)
I seriously disaqgree with my conservative collegues and liberal union folks who argue against immigration to the United States. I am the descendant of immigrants, as is nearly everyone else in the USA, and our ancestors came when there were no rules to immigration.
I would argue that people who are motivated enough to leave their homelands to come to the USA are motivated enough to work hard and succeed and I have 200 years of outstanding economic growth and opportunity to back me up. Every time this country has opened its borders, we have gotten increased opportunity, increased social dynamism, all pumping the engine of capitalism and driving the USA to ever greater success.
Clamping down on Phds and graduate students from American universities is about the stupidest immigration policy that one could ever devise. If someone has come to this country to study and obtain a university degree, I would think that proves that they are the stuff we want our citizens to be.
The issue of immigration has split the Republican Party right down the middle, but I for one think that Bush and McCain were on the right side of the issue and it is a shame that the odd coalition of labor activists and xenophobes combined to bring what would have been an outstanding immigration bill dead in its tracks. Regardless of who is elected, I hope that saner heads will prevail in both parties, this time around, and America will once again live up to the promise of the statue of liberty, "Give me your poor, tired huddled masses yearning to breath free."... or, in the very least, "give me all of your phds in mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering, in fact, just give me all of them and your undergrads too."
DHS? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Department of Homeland Security makes a rule change to allow additional foreign workers in the engineering and software fields. No doubt they see areas such as telecommunications, security, aviation and DoD work as being low risk. But try to get some Mexicans in here to pick lettuce and we have to build a wall to stop it.
I understand US industries motivation in this area. But aside from the DHS reviewing proposed visa procedures, I can't understand why they should be the ones to sponsor such a regulation. This would seem to fall more within the charter of the Dept. of Commerce. If DHS has no security work to keep it busy, perhaps its time to pull the plug.
And an *emergency* no less. (Score:3, Informative)
According this back-door legislation, the shortage of tech workers was so sever, that it constituted a national emergency.
But, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:
August 06, 2008
Almost 50,000 IT positions lost in last 12 months
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/08/06/Bureau-of-Labor-Statistics-reports-big-drop-in-tech-jobs_1.html [infoworld.com]
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So, its not an issue of labor supply. And, based on the Andaya case cited in the summary, its not an issue of pay.
Hiring an employee for only two years, particularly one fresh out of college is pointless from a productivity point of view. It takes a year or two to get them up to speed. This is interesting. Bring in an employee fresh out of school, but with no guarantee that they can remain in country after 2 years. Essentially, what you are doing is spending money training them. But then, in two years, the
Myths and Realities About the USA H1-B Program (Score:4, Informative)
Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"
Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?
Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?
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Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers
Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.
> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload [ssrn.com]
This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:
http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw [tinyurl.com]
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Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage
Reality:
> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].
> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.
http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh [tinyurl.com]
According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html [sharedprosperity.org]
H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.
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Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers
Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.
> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh [tinyurl.com]
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Myth: Critics of the H1-B program are xenophobic
Reality: This "argument" is nothing but name calling. These allegations are offered without any s
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The point is not protectionism. The point is that the H1-B program is being used to create a class of indentured servants, who are pushing native US workers out of jobs while being exploited themselves.
After I got laid off from HP nearly 3 years ago, I fully expected to have another IT-related job long before my severance package and unemployment ran out. Instead, I've lost my house, declared bankruptcy, and am now working as a security guard, making less than 1/3 of what I used to earn with health covera
supply and demand 101 (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course an increase in supply will decrease demand. Duh and obviously this judge did not take Highschool economics 101 or use common sense.
If she wants to argue its not the government's job to make competitive salaries then I would agree with her. Something doesn't seem right about this ruling and the fact that federal government already has dirt on her as another slashdotter pointed out might have something to do with it.
Well I am about 100k in college debt and was told to expect to make 12/hr when I graduate! Why did I go back to school? The economic climate is not favorable to employees right now and I would not be surprised if alot of laid of I.T. workers banded together and become more pollitically involved. I majored in B.A. and gave up in I.T. An MCSE, A+ and 2 years experience is not enough to keep a job anymore and I do not want to keep getting outsourced and shafted.
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CPAs and accountants are going to be outsourced next and lawyers. If you want a lawyer for new York state law you go to New Jersey. Why can't you fly to an Indian lawfirm where they are alot cheaper? All hell will break loose when this happens as most politicians were lawyers.
Going to Bangalore (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Going to Bangalore (Score:5, Informative)
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--The FNP
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Or maybe she is just that stupid because she was a Clinton nominee [nara.gov].
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silly me, I didn't think we had H1-B's in 1900. I thought we allowed people to immigrate.
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That's because you don't understand differences between labor and commodity. More oil means lower prices; more workers means more jobs and more work done.
The more workers you have, the larger is your economy, and EVERYBODY is better off.
If you don't understand the concept at least compare our economy in 2008 with that in 1492 (pre-immigration).
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That's because you don't understand differences between labor and commodity. More oil means lower prices; more workers means more jobs and more work done.
Maybe overall and eventually, but it takes time for things to adjust.
The more workers you have, the larger is your economy, and EVERYBODY is better off.
That doesn't work if the new workers are all in one field, you end up with high unemployment and/or low pay for a while until people get displaced to other lines of work ("I just can't find a job as a programmer any more, I think I'll learn how to farm switchgrass instead.").
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I like your point about new workers all in one field. But I believe right now most immigrants are actually in the unskilled labor pool, including the 12 million illegal immigrants and most of the legal immigrants in the "family-sponsored" category.
Re:Eliminate the H1-B (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you hate me too, or only people from India and Bangladesh?
(I'm in the process of getting an H1-B visa, but I'm white and British - so does that make it okay? Or are you opposed to all foreigners? I thought the USA was founded on immigration, you know...)
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Do you hate me too, or only people from India and Bangladesh?
(I'm in the process of getting an H1-B visa, but I'm white and British - so does that make it okay? Or are you opposed to all foreigners? I thought the USA was founded on immigration, you know...)
What really upsets me is not the fact that the H1-B people are here. But the comments from some people that use the fact that our country was based on immigration... To say that the US was based on immigration and thus you should be loved by everyone is stupid. Yes, most of the now citizens of the US had family roots (from 1st generation to several generations ago) that immigrated over here. This however does not mean that we still feel that everyone and their family dog should be in the US. So do ever
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nation of Immigrants (Score:3, Informative)
I thought the USA was founded on immigration, you know
It was built by immigrants, but strictly speaking, it was founded on tax revolt. We didn't like sending payment to England just because you were trying to pay for the French and Indian war.
-jcr
We really didn't fix immigration as a part of our national identity until after the Civil War. Prior to that time, most Americans traced their ancestry to Britain. Irish, Germans, Poles, etc, didn't start coming here until well after the country was founded, and didn't kick into high gear until after the War between the States, which, consequently, is also about the time anti-immigrant sentiment really took off. And that "nation of immigrants" identity hasn't exactly been static since then. After World War
Kick all immigrants out... (Score:5, Insightful)
This says it all: http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/7628/helppack8hw1oh.jpg [imageshack.us]
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I am for a reduction of ALL immigration, not just the H-1B.In my opinion, the the H1-B is just stupid. We should just train and hire our own people. We should also ban sending our jobs overseas just so corporations can give their CEOs 20 million dollar a year bonuses.
Speaking as a computer professional who lives and works outside the USA[0], I strongly agree with you[1] and would encourage all US citizens to lobby their politicians to adopt the above position (to paraphrase Randy Bush).
0. I guess, given you
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There are about 10 others from the Indian subcontinent who work at my college in IT and every single one of them are sub par (of course, so is the rest of Information Services... but that is another kettle of fish).
Doesn't that make them par with the other employees?
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The guy you are replying to is a nativist ("hire your citizens, marry your family" kind) who's not worth your effort. Sadly, people like that likely cannot understand why they are wrong.
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Hold on... there's just ONE thing that's confusing me about your post...
I am a H1-B dev from Europe.....I am here to take your jobs, women and beer
What European would want to drink American beer?
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"Would you want to write code for 15K a year?"
Not when minimum wage about the same amount ($7.25/hour is $14,500/year).
As to paying engineers $8.00 per hour, I'd rather not drive over that bridge.
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"to the detriment of the customer."
Maybe -- but do you know something? *I* am the supplier, and NOT the customer. As to the customer -- they get the benefit of dealing with professionals.
I would love to organize.
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$41000 is not six figures... who shunned math again?
Gross generalization (was:You lazy americans) (Score:2)
I code. I work 12 hrs a day, six days a week, sometimes seven (no, we don't get overtime. no, we're not a start up.) So please, eat your own bull instead of slinging it around at others.
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flow of capital up and out you mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
'Cause the shrinking middle class is tired of seeing our funds be sucked up by other Americans because they had the money and connections to rip us off.
Food and gas goes up, who gets richer?