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Deval Patrick throws American tech workers under the bus
By bobmetcalf on Mon, 09/17/2007 - 9:31am
Deval Patrick has joined eleven other governors in lobbying
congress to increase the number of indentured servants, no--wait,
H1B visa holders:
Here's the story:
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9776360-7.html
Anf here's a great video from youtube. An immigration law firm
coachign employers on how to 'legally' replace American workers
with imported, cheaper labor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
And finally, here's another link describing how one H1B mill
was fined for underpaying hundreds of H1B visa holders once
they got them here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/07/business...
To paraphrase Deval, "Together, with Big Business, we can (screw
American workers)!"
Thanks Deval.
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Comments
Please
Massachusetts needs technology companies to survive. We have no cornfields, no steel mills, no auto factories, no nothing. This is one of the most expensive places in the entire country to do business. These tech companies are telling us that they need to be able to hire some H1Bs in order to stay in business, and now you act like they are trying to "screw" the workers?
Fine, go ahead and make it so that they can't hire any H1Bs. Whiel you're at it make it so that no tech worker should ever lose his job or take a pay cut. Then just see how long it is before these companies go to Texas or Canada.
End H1B
It would be unreasonable to protect tech workers from layoffs or pay cuts. It is equally unreasonable to swamp the tech lab or market with foreign workers.
It should be stressed that H1B coolies are also used to outflank nurses and you had better believe that the use of H1B'ers will spread to other industries as well.
If tech companies can't find workers in America they should open offices in other countries. There's nothing weird about that, although I can understand why nobody would want to deal with the sectarian, ethnic and political strife in India, or the country's decrepit infrastructre, or its deeply corrupt government bureaucracy. How crappy is India from a business standpoint? So crappy that most H1B visas are issued to Indian companies looking to ferry workers to America. Don't let corporate greed stiff American workers.
H1B is a scam and should be ended. There are no more than 3,000 - 4,000 people in the world a year who truly have technological or scientific know-how that would benefit America. The rest are just wage-depressing coolies.
"There are no more than
"There are no more than 3,000 - 4,000 people in the world a year who truly have technological or scientific know-how that would benefit America."
This is a joke right?
No.
No.
OK
So what do you think the other 5.8 billion people in the world are doing all day long, playing checkers? And who makes all those Toyota Camrys, Airbus jets, and flat screen TVs? Santa's elves?
If one is simply looking to
If one is simply looking to add workers who are by one or several measurements better than a typical American worker, then one could certainly issue millions of H1B visas a year. I think America should use its attractiveness to cherry pick. H1B'ers should be geniuses or near geniuses with Nobel potential, or they should be supremely accomplished in their field. Google's H1B poster boy is the man behind Google News. That's just laughable.
But I like your Airbus argument. I shall use it when I butt heads with Eurocrats. I shall tell them EU doesn't need labor immigration since its member countries already have Airbus and a whole bunch other high-end companies.
Sorry
Sorry my head is still spinning from the "only 3000 smart people on earth outside the U.S." statement.
Or we could...
Or we could let qualified people, y'know, actually immigrate here instead of using these temporary visas.
This is not a zero-sum game here.
The harder it gets for a smart person to come here, the more likely it is that the next innovative booms will occur elsewhere. H1B visas (or real immigration) bring good people here and create more jobs overall.
Want to reduce the cost of doing business in MA? Try increasing the supply of housing, and fixing the transit system...
And quit it with the industry-specific tax-breaks. That's the government trying to direct the economy. Just make this a good place to do business (plenty of smart people and a good place for them to live and good ways for them to get around) and let business do business. They'll figure out whether biotech or nanotech or pharma or astrophysics or journalism are the way to go.
send them back?
I think you've totally misunderstood this issue. Our choices are:
a) educate non-US-citizens at our universities and then send them back to their home countries where they can take jobs away from people here
OR
b) educate non-US-citizens here and then hire them to work at US companies where they can help grow our economy.
More Choices
Or we could
c) impede their entry in the first place with hysterical Homeland Security double-secret watch lists (Ahh, so your name is Ahmed... GUARDS!!!).
Then they'd go study in Europe instead, and grow their economy.
Your head stopped spinning?
Your head stopped spinning? Good.
H1B visas are mostly issued foreigners who are not U.S. educated. Since selling degrees to foreigners at rack rate is big business for American colleges Congress has created an additional set of H1B visas for foreigners with U.S. college degrees.
Growing the economy by artificially growing the workforce is not a particularly impressive economic policy.