Ms. Elaine Chao Sent Cert. Mail # 7003050000240446676
Frances
Perkins Building
200
Constitution Ave. NW
Washington,
D.C. 20210
CC:
Dr. William L. Carlson, Ph.D. - Chief
Division of Foreign Labor Certification.
U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
200 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20210
The Honorable Saxby Chambliss
416 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
154 Signers of the original letter
RE: Petition by
154 U.S. workers harmed by LCA’s issued by Department of Labor for H-1B visas.
Dear Labor Secretary Chao,
We were disappointed that neither you nor anyone
in your office that is charged with keeping U.S. workers gainfully employed
responded to our May 3, 2003 letter. Instead our letter was routed to Dr.
William Carlson, Chief of the Foreign Labor Certification Division, who is
charged with approving the Labor Certification Attestations (LCA’s) that have
substantially harmed those American workers who were seeking your assistance.
Once again, we are beseeching you, as U.S. Labor
Secretary, to address the harm being done to U.S. workers by the H-1B Visa
program, and ask that you or a staff member charged with protecting U.S.
workers act on our May 3rd letter.
According to your Department of Labor website:
The mission of
the Foreign Labor Certification Program is to allow employers to hire foreign
workers, temporarily or permanently, when there are not sufficient U.S.
workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to perform the job.
In addition, the program will ensure that the employment of the foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and
working conditions of U.S. workers that are similarly employed...The role
of the Department of
Labor is to certify to the Secretary of
State and the Attorney General that these conditions are
met before a foreign worker is brought to the U.S. on an employment-based
visa."
www.ows.doleta.gov/foreign/mission.asp
Dr. Carlson’s response, citing statutes,
affirmed that the Foreign Labor Certification Division that he oversees, issues
LCA’s in spite of ample qualified U.S. workers, with the full knowledge that
these LCA’s are adversely impacting U.S. workers.
Our letter requested reasonable actions that the
Department of Labor could take. For example, action item number 2 from our May
3rd letter:
“Call on Congress to restore adequate worker protections to
the nonimmigrant visa statutes, such as requiring that all LCAs demonstrate a
lack of qualified U.S. workers, and a due process means of excluded U.S.
workers to challenge LCAs.”
Given
Dr. Carlson’s knowledge that the LCA’s his department has issued in the past
few years have deprived hundreds of thousands of U.S. worker of their paycheck,
the above request does not seem unreasonable.
The
LCA’s granted by the Department of Labor in the past five years have displaced
hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers -- as evident by the testimonials of 154
U.S. workers in our first letter.
What
kind of tracking does DOL maintain on the number of gainfully employed U.S.
workers who have been displaced by the influx of H-1B visa holders who have
been granted LCA’s? Can DOL provide any
good estimates? Does DOL deem LCA’s impact on U.S. workers relevant?
Please
advise us which Division within the U.S. Department of Labor is charged with
protecting the interests and rights of
U.S. workers rather than furthering the employment opportunities of alien
workers in the U.S. labor market -- as your office has apparently taken as
their task.
Speaking
on behalf of the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR harmed American workers, we would
like to file a formal protest with the U.S. Department of Labor for failing to
enforce the minimum conditions of the LCA standards as required by federal
statute. Please advise whom we should contact and the procedure for doing so.
With 154 signatories representing thousands more
displaced American citizen workers we have sought the Department of Labor’s
help in our good faith letter to
Secretary Chao on May 3rd.
The response we received on May 27th did not clarify what
actions Secretary Chao will take in support of this very representative group
of American workers, nor did it explain why all of our suggested actions were
ignored.
The response from Dr. Carlson failed to state
what, if any, actions you, Secretary Chao have or will be taking to address our
harms. Are we to assume by Dr. Carlson's willful neglect of these concerns that
you, as Secretary of Labor have no intent in seeing that the rights of U.S.
workers are protected nor their complaints investigated by the Department of
Labor? If this is so, then it is contrary
to your own statement on the Department of Labor website upon which we the
American worker relied upon as we turned to you for assistance:
"Getting people back to work is what this Department
does. Giving people hope in their future is our job."
—
Secretary Elaine L. Chao
If
you read the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times, you know that many
Americans are running out of hope. The despair reaches across this nation,
including a recent suicide by a laid off U.S. programmer in the parking lot of
his former employer, Bank of America in California. Yet DOL continues to grant
LCA’s to this employer, in spite of overwhelming evidence of the intent to
displace U.S. workers.
Sincerely,
Mr. Kim Berry – Computer
programmer PRINCIPAL CONTACT
Mr. Glenn R.
Jackson – Sr. Manager. IT PRINCIPAL CONTACT
"Unemployed for 18 months after a 24-year career in IT."
ON BEHALF OF 154 U.S. WORKERS, AND THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DISPLACED U.S. WORKERS THEY REPREPRESENT