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Lodi-News Sentinal

Saturday, September 23, 2000
By Joe Guzzardi

Worker visa plan spells bad news for Americans

Americans are entitled to know the truth about the controversial H-1B
visa program.

As I write this column, Congress is poised to again nearly double the
number of annual H-1B visas from the current ceiling of 115,000 to
200,000 a year. In 1998, the total was increased from the original
65,000 set in 1991 to 115,000. Joe Guzzardi

That's bad news for the American worker. Those 200,000 visas will
displace many currently employed Americans. They will deny young
Americans an opportunity to apply for those positions. And the visas
will also contribute to the deterioration of wages.

As the new H-1B visa holders arrive from India, Pakistan and China
arrive, the software industry will keep the door shut on Americans who
are under-represented in the field: Blacks, Hispanics and women.

In editorial after editorial across the country, you've read that the
software industry needs another increase in the visa allotment because
America doesn't have enough skilled workers to fill "hundreds of
thousands of vacancies."

Why, those same editorials have asked, should you object to a massive
wave of "the best and the brightest workers in the world?"

Before you buy into those arguments, look at who is making the claims:
Silicon Valley executives who profit from the cheap imported labor,
politicians whose campaigns are financed by Silicon Valley soft money
and so-called human resources specialists whose paychecks depend on
placing H-1B visa holders.

No shortage of programmers exists. A recent Government Accounting
Office report said that despite the insistence of software executives,
experienced programmers are abundant in the U.S. As evidence, firms
who use programmers reject about 95 percent of the applicants who mail
in resumes.

What started in 1991 with little fanfare, the H-1B program has
displaced thousands of Americans. Some suffer the indignity of having
to train their woefully inadequate replacements before their severance
packages are approved.

Currently, several major corporations across the country are preparing
to fire their programmers and add cheap H-1B workers. "It's not
against the law," the software companies say.

And they're right. Loopholes in the law allow corporations to purge
their staff and hire "temporary" H-1B visa holders. For the
immigrants, who work for 40 percent less than Americans, the H-1B visa
is manna from heaven. Suddenly they are in the U.S. with a green card.
No matter to them that they earn significantly less than the average
industry wages.

Despite loud claims to the contrary, the newcomers are far from "the
best and the brightest." Most have the equivalent of a trade school
education. And because they are dependent on continued employment from
their sponsoring corporation to keep their green card, the H-1Bs
submit to a form of indentured servitude by working without complaint
for 80 hours or more a week.

Don't take my word for any of this. In 1993, when H-1B abuse was just
beginning, "60 Minutes" did a Leslie Stahl segment, "North of the
Border."

Said Stahl in her introduction, "At a time when thousands of American
programmers are having a tough time finding work, some of America's
biggest companies are hiring cut-rate, foreign programmers to take
their jobs."

Stahl inquired about foreign programmers being "the best and the
brightest," and former Immigration and Naturalization Service official
Demetrious Papademtetriou said, "These are basically run of the mill
people with some skills."

About the rate of pay the H-1B visa holder receives, employment agency
owner Jim Schneider said, "The American is being displaced. They're
being displaced by foreign nationals who work at a much lower rate
than is acceptable."

Stahl challenged Lewis Platt, then chief executive officer of
Hewlett-Packard: "We're told that you're paying below prevailing wage
and the reason you hire these people is to get cut-rate work. The
effect is to cut out American workers." Platt:" I have nothing to say
about this."

When Stahl pressed Platt by asking, "Do you think you're doing
anything wrong?" he replied, "No, we don't."

Two things have changed since 1993. One is that the mainstream media
has stopped running insightful pieces like the "60 Minutes" segment.
Instead, they have become house organs for the software industry.
Whatever spins the industry gives, the media prints as gospel.

Second, the industry is more blatant and more arrogant. No matter the
number of visas issued, it will never be enough.

Congress is more callous. If the American public doesn't approve of
the H-1B visa policy, and according to a Lou Harris poll, 84% don't,
too bad. What's important is raising money for re-election ads to
distract the voters from what's really happening in Washington.

And if you wonder why this affront to the American worker continues,
Congressman Thomas Davis of Virginia summed it up. Said Davis, "This
is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the
money."

Joe Guzzardi, an instructor at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing
a weekly opinion column since 1988. He can be reached via e-mail.