Dan Gillmor
Posted at 8:43 p.m. PDT Monday, September 20, 1999

You can have a say about H-1B visas

BY DAN GILLMOR
Mercury News Technology Columnist

WHEN the new federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1, American technology
companies will go on their annual foreign-worker hiring binge. Some
115,000 foreign engineers and technicians will come to the United
States under the H-1B visa program, designed to help an industry that
perpetually wails about a worker shortage.

This week in Santa Clara, a high-level federal committee will be
asking questions about the shortage, which critics call
semi-fraudulent, and the need for the visa program in the first place.
Alan Merten, chairman of the panel, says he and his colleagues have
open minds about these issues.

I hope so. Every instinct I possess tells me the shortage is at least
partially contrived.

I say this because every time I write about the issue I hear from
people who say they've either lost jobs to H-1B visa holders or who
believe tech companies are engaging in rampant age discrimination
against American engineers and technicians. I can't prove there's a
fire raging in Silicon Valley hiring suites, but the smell of smoke is
undeniable.

The federal panel -- the National Research Council's Committee on
Workforce Issues in Information Technology -- is meeting Wednesday
through Friday at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Clara, one of several
sets of public hearings during the project. For more information,
check out the committee's Web site (www.itworkforce.org).

The committee, created under instructions from Congress, has a serious
mission: to understand the tech industry's apparently insatiable need
for workers and to help find a way to supply those workers. The
mission goes beyond questions of age discrimination and immigration,
says Herbert Lin, co-director of the study.

Those are the flashpoints in the current debate, however, and the
committee needs to hear the voices of people who feel the industry is
doing them wrong. While the scheduled witnesses include a variety of
official corporate, academic and labor voices, the three-day hearing
includes substantial time for members of the public who aren't on the
prearranged agenda.

H-1B opponents have been losing almost every fight, an unsurprising
situation given the tech industry's enormous clout in Washington. But
opponents claimed a tiny victory last week when, according to
Congressional Quarterly, the chief sponsor of a bill to raise the visa
quota said he wouldn't push the bill this calendar year. The win was
almost meaningless, though, because the industry won't use up the
fiscal year 2000 quota until sometime next year in any event.

Other such bills are in the legislative hopper, however, and the
industry won't stop pushing for much higher quotas. Labor groups won't
stop fighting against the visas, either, but the opponents will remain
underdogs in this fight unless they can show persuasively that there
are abuses in the current program and in industry hiring in general.

Merten, the committee chair, isn't satisfied with anecdotal evidence
and what he calls flawed studies that have supported various
viewpoints on whether a legitimate shortage exists or not. ``I wish we
had better data,'' he says.

He's qualified to examine any data, even though he clearly agrees that
a shortage does exist on some level. Merton, president of George Mason
University in suburban Washington, D.C., was previously a computer
scientist -- one of his degrees is a master's in computer science from
Stanford University -- and business school dean. He's also a director
of several technology companies.

The committee's makeup isn't monolithic, though a check of the
membership shows several members who doubtless will hold pro-industry
views: Patricia Murray, vice president and director of human resources
at Intel Corp., and Ira Rubinstein, senior corporate attorney at
Microsoft. But the committee also includes Eileen Appelbaum, research
director at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think
tank that is critical of business on many issues.

Do you believe that the tech industry has invented or exaggerated the
worker shortage? Do you believe tech companies have discriminated
against you because of your age? Were you laid off and replaced by a
H-1B visa holder? Do you know of abuses in the visa program?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, head over to the
hearings this week. Sign up and speak your mind. The committee will
hold three open sessions at which members of the public can testify:
from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and from 1 to 4:30 p.m.
Friday. Even if you can't testify, your presence will say something
useful if enough people turn out.

However you feel about these issues, you have a right to be heard. You
have the opportunity, too -- so don't miss your chance.
_________________________________________________________________

Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. E-mail:
dgillmor@sjmercury.com; phone (408) 920-5016; fax (408) 920-5917. PGP
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