PROGRAMMERS GUILD E-NEWSLETTER
JULY 2007

YOUTUBE ISSUE

Welcome new members and subscribers,

Americans turned out and defeated the Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which would have allowed 12 million illegal aliens to keep their jobs without ever posting the jobs for American workers, and would have substantially increased the H-1b quota. Celebrate July 4th, but don't let your guard down. The open border "war on the middle-class" lobby has not gone away.

As reporters start feeling the downsizing and outsourcing pressure, we might get some more sympathetic press. Last week the reporters at Wall Street Journal staged a walkout, in part over a threat to their wage and benefits. (Many news reports claim that the H-1b prevailing wage protects U.S. programmers from displacement. The level one DOL prevailing wage for reporter in New York City is $14.52 per hour.) Search for other professions here (the majority of LCAs for H-1b use the level one wage): http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx

Certainly there is room for improvement. The Washington Post article Worker Visas Intensify Debate on Immigration begins by profiling the foreign workers at Virtual Atlantic, failing to disclose that they were recruited from the UK for a salary of $30,000. (These workers are not necessary and are displacing U.S. workers - there is no shortage of Americans capable of developing websites for golf courses.)The article then quotes Ali Saberi as being unable to hire 24 H-1b workers because of the quota - failing to disclose what company he represents. We found it. They offshore work to India and their jobs read like PERM fake job ads.

YouTube-Gate

The YouTube Cohen & Grigsby clip we posted two weeks ago of the immigration law firm instructing employers how to conduct PERM recruiting in a manner that excludes all qualified American applicants was a hit. It now has over 180,000 views, including Senators and other government officials, and key media. Links to the video and media coverage are at the top of www.programmersguild.org. Please continue to help spread the message. (Our YouTube Page contains clips of Lou Dobbs and other relevant issues.)

Senate inquiry into L-1 visa use

While we have been focused on the H-1b visa, some employers continue to transfer in hundreds or thousands of tech workers from their third world offices, and continue to pay them third world wages while they work in the U.S. InfoWorld reports that Senators Durbin and Grassley are launching an investigation. (Also see our blog NASSCOM's claim that only "small Indian companies" abuse H-1b visa is absurd - which addresses L-1 too.)

Round-Two of American Job Destruction is about to begin

As reported in the San Francisco article "Immigration vote sinks H-1b visa deal" the H-1b increase, along was some good reforms, there were in the comprehensive immigration bill have died. However we are still faced with two threats:

a) As reported by Computer World on June 28th, Industry is preparing separate bills to increase H-1b. Compete America has issued a press release vowing to continue lobbying for and H-1b increase "in both the House and the Senate."

b) The H-1b increase in the House will be headed by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who chairs the Immigration Subcommittee on the Judicary. Lofgren is a former immigration attorney with a history of supporting the H-1b program.

HELP: We need to hear from people in Silicon Valley who are willing to speak to the media, and rally support against H-1b increase. If you are in Silicon Valley please educate your contacts on the impact that 150,000 H-1b per year would have, and encourage them to contact us. You may contact us for that matter via: msjobs-AT-programmersguild.org.

Fake job ads are everywhere

On June 23rd we documented that three of the seven classified ads in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review were PERM fake job ads.

Fake Job Ads in the July 1, 2007 Sacramento Bee

Please see this link for an analysis of the apparently PERM fake ads run by Global Energy Decisions and Megabyte Systems, Inc. on July 1st.

HELP: Please submit your resume to these fake ads.

Fake Job Ads at Cisco Systems - they admit it

network consulting engineer David Huber inquired about an ad at Cisco, and was given the phone number of an immigration attorney. Huber suspected that this was a PERM fake job ad. And, in the ComputerWorld article "Controversial YouTube video puts sharp focus on tech job ads", Jennifer Greeson, a spokeswoman for Cisco, acknowledged that the ad for the network consulting engineer that Huber spotted was placed to meet U.S. Department of Labor requirements for hiring foreign workers.

Jennifer defends the ads, claiming that U.S. American workers are being considered for the position. Oh sure. Would Jennifer care to disclose how many PERM ads Cisco has run, and how many times the process determined that a qualified American was available? Actually she doesn't need to, since Cisco's prior PERM filings are available as Microsoft Access DB files from the DOL Website:

http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CasePerm.aspx

Cisco's 2006 PERM filings are here as zipped Excel file. Of the 285 Fake recruiting efforts, only five did not result in certification. 99% of the time Cisco is "unable to find any qualified Americans" during PERM recruiting.

Fake Job Ad at LogLogic

One reader wondered whether this ad at LogLogic (archived here) might be a PERM fake ad. It requires "10+ years of complex web based software development." This is an absurd "requirement" that excludes all recent college graduates and virtually every top candidate, since very few people were doing "complex web-based software development" in 1997. And even those that were would have been using different technologies than we use today.

http://www.loglogic.com/on-us/join-us/jobs/principal_software_engineer_web_applications/

LogLogic filed two PERM ads in 2006 - available here in the second tab. And they have a history of LCA. This is a fake job ad.

HELP: Please examine your local Sunday paper and scan and email us ads that clearly appear to be PERM ads to msjobs-AT-programmersguild.org.

From the Blog

Please visit our blog periodically to stay updated with the latest news

NASSCOM's claim that only "small Indian companies" abuse H-1b visa is absurd

Microsoft, Oracle, and Google demand that H-1b remain a source of cheap labor

YouTube-Gate: Cohen & Grigsby train how to NOT hire qualified Americans

Immigration attorney Philip Boyle argues that H-1b puts upward pressure on the salaries of U.S. software professionals (we respectfully disagree)