Electronic Engineering Times
August 9, 1999


By Rob Sanchez


Americans are being replaced by H1-B's


Advocates of H-1B claim that the H-1B visas will be issued to fill open jobs -
not to replace American workers. The American public would be outraged if they
knew that the H-1B program is being used to replace American workers with
indentured slaves. I know because I was replaced with an engineer hired with an
H-1B visa. I am a 44-year-old software engineer that was educated with taxpayer
money and now I can't find a job because the H-1B bill makes it way too easy
for companies to fire older engineers.


After I was fired I decided to take legal action because I thought the H-1B
program couldn't be used to replace American engineers. I called an H-1B policy
specialist for the Department of Labor in Washington D.C. to see if I had any
legal recourse. She gave me nothing but bad news. I have no basis for legal
action because the new H-1B was designed to have huge gaping loopholes. The
H-1B bill doesn't restrict business from replacing American workers with
H-1B's. American workers have no protections what so ever!


H-1B advocates claim that the law has "protections" that will prevent American
workers from being replaced. The law says the companies are restricted from
replacing Americans if that company's workforce has more than 15% of its total
employees H1-B's. The loopholes appear when you see how the total number of
H-1B employees is counted. Here are the loopholes:


1) The 15% is a percentage of all employees in the company compared to H-1B
employees. In other words janitors and secretaries can be in that same count.
Since companies don't hire H-1B janitors or maids, 100% of the engineering
department could be on H-1B visas and it would be totally legal.


2) The count includes only employees that have current working H-1B's. If they
are now on some other kind of resident visa they don't need to be counted.


3) They don't need to be counted if they have a Master's degree or higher. The
H1-B doesn't actually have to have a real accredited Master's degree. The
company can say that their experience level is equivalent to a Master's degree.
This gives companies a loophole they can use to leave any H-1B out of the count
they want.


4) Companies, if asked, must state that they don't intend to replace American
citizens with H-1B's. Of course the understaffed Department of Labor never asks
them. If a company is asked that question they can claim that the H-1B worker
has "specific skill sets" that can't be found among the American work force.


She said there is a regulation that requires that I may request to see a public
access file that lists the H1-B's that have been hired by my former employer.
But this effort would be moot since the company does have the legal right to
replace me. U.S. law sanctions replacing American engineers. She explained to
me how this H1-B is really worse than we could possibly imagine.


Actually these depressing absurdities don't stop there. Here are the reasons
that these H-1B's are really indentured slaves that are exploited by American
companies:


1) If the H-1B is fired or quits they will lose their work visa and will have
to go back to their home country - unless they can get another company to get a
visa for them. An H-1B is at the mercy of the company they work for. This is
great for companies that have a hard time getting Americans to work 70-hour
weeks.


2) If an H1-B quits the company he or she works for, that company can sue them
for "liquidated damages". They can be sued for all of the salary they earned
plus monetary damages that the company says will occur as a result of losing
this employee. Of course the company can come up with any arbitrary damage sum
that it feels like. Is this much different from the days that slaves were
flogged for running away from the plantation?


Now companies are asking that the yearly limit of 115,000 H-1B's be raised
again. This limit will never be high enough until most engineers are out of
their jobs. Our economy is being subverted by congress!


Replaced AMERICAN engineer