[NTLUG:Discuss] Job Searching

[Steve Baker]

Daniel Hauck wrote:
> 
> Speaking as an unemployed person, I am *way* for this proposal.  The muscle
> behind the increase in H1-B visas have been H1-B "brokerage" firms and large
> companies who have historically lost law suits initiated by former employees
> who were fired and then replaced by two H1-Bs.  (It has happened a LOT...
> and they lobbyists are still out there telling the Senate and Congress that
> we need more foreign techies because we don't have enough in this country...

Well, let's be careful with the Xenophobia here.

I'm one of those foreigners who came here on an H1-B.  I agree that there are
cases where companies abuse the H1-B system to bring in cheap labour - people
who are "in green-card jail" can't easily change jobs and stand no chance of
ever getting a pay rise.

HOWEVER - to apply a blanket ban is sheer stupidity.  Look at my personal
circumstances:

  1) I was *INVITED* to come to the US and work - I didn't ask.  The work I
     do is flight simulation - primarily for the US armed forces.  Every F117
     pilot and practically every F18 pilot fighting out in Afghanistan right
     now learned to do critical parts of his job on simulators that I helped
     to design.  Ditto for F16 pilots if they get involved.

  2) Because my expertise makes the company I work for more effective, we
     out-sell British, French and Canadian simulator companies.  That means
     *MORE* jobs for US techies - not less.  I'm working using an operating
     system whose kernel was originally written by another H1-B who was
     invited to come to work in the US....remember him?

  3) Whilst there is no shortage of technical people here, there *IS* a
     vast shortage in some fields.  Mine is one of those.  The company I
     work for has been trying to recruit more people with my skills for at
     least the past 5 years - with exactly zero success.

  4) It's not *always* that H1-B's are cheaper and depress local salaries
     - I earn well over $100k not counting the 20 hours paid overtime I
     do most weeks. That's a LOT for a programmer..specialised knowledge
     or not.  I'm not here as "cheap labour".

  5) In order to turn my H1-B into a work permit, they had to *PROVE* to
     the INS that nobody in the US is both willing and able to do the job
     at the current market salary.  They had to advertise the job - record every
     letter, resume, phone call, etc from applicants for *my* job - and
     individually explain to the INS why each candidate was rejected.
     If they had found someone, I'd have been on the next plane back home.

  6) For the last 8 years (while the INS carefully wades through the process
     of producing on 3 inch by 2 inch green card with my photo on it), I've
     been unable to change jobs, unable to accept a promotion or change of
     job title.  As you can imagine - that can be *VERY* frustrating.

  7) That *nice* Mr Clinton decided that non-Citizens (even those with
     a permenant right of residence who have been paying US taxes for 
     decades) are ineligable for most kinds of government assistance.
     That means that whilst H1-B's pay the same taxes as everyone else,
     we are a much lower drain on the nations' resources.

  8) Shipping all the H1-B workers out of the US won't necessarily result
     in their jobs going to Americans.  We have the Internet - people can
     do software engineering anywhere - if companies need these people,
     they can simply give them a T1 line in an office in their own country
     and have them work there - no H1-B needed - and *STILL* less work for
     US Citizens.  In fact, since the cost of living is much less in most
     other countries, they could be paid even less than those same people
     would be paid in the US - undercutting US salaries still further...
     and they wouldn't be paying US taxes.

IMHO:

The *RIGHT* thing to do is to have the INS process H1-B visa's into full
Green-Cards in MUCH less than the current EIGHT YEARS.  Three months would
be about right.  It's ludicrous that they take this long.  If you could
process them faster, the employers wouldn't be able to exploit the inability
of H1-B workers to change jobs and their consequent inability to negotiate
pay rises.  That would greatly reduce the depression of salaries that can
happen with unscrupulous companies and make H1-B people much less attractive
where US Citizens are available to do the job.

You could consider fining companies who repeatedly bring people into
the country who are eventually rejected from the Green-Card process.

Processing H1-B's into GreenCards faster would obviously cost more in
the INS - so make the companies who want to employ these people pay
the price of doing the work...if they are serious, they won't mind,
if they are only interested in getting a cheap vanilla programmer,
they won't do it.

Furthermore, the INS needs to be MUCH more rigerous in checking the rules
about advertising the H1-B worker's job locally and NOT turning the
H1-B into a permenant green-card if a US citizen can indeed be found
to do the job at a reasonable rate of pay.  This has to be done
RAPIDLY so that where H1-B people *ARE* genuinely needed, they can
be brought into the system and made permenant residents in as
short a time as possible.  That will also help the importation of
the most talented people.

I've *never* heard of an H1-B visa holder who stuck it out here
and was eventually rejected by the INS...the only people I know who
left without their Green-Card were people who literally couldn't stand
being stuck in the same job at the same salary for that long.

That's ridiculous.

A faster, more careful check on a potential Green-Card holder will
also be a better deterrent to foreign terrorists who are 'sleepers',
waiting for years for a call to attack.  Those people would have
to be genuinely talented workers with all the right skills - or they'd
be out of the country in a couple of months.

> I have many friends who are actually H1-B visa people... I'd be sorry to see
> them go, but damnit, I'm a CITIZEN and I need a job.  Am I a citizen or a
> consumer?

You are a human being - same as me.

If there is one thing the people of this country should learn from Sept 11th,
it is that - like it or not - you are part of a larger world.

Massed deportation of your allies law-abiding citizens isn't going to do
much for keeping the fragile alliance together.  You should have heard the
upset in the UK when five British widows who lost their husbands in the
World Trade Center disaster were notified that they were to be deported
within two weeks.  Without an H1-B worker in the family, they no longer
had valid visa's.  It takes 8 years to process a Green Card - but less
than three weeks to do something as cold and heartless as that.

That's NOT the way to make friends in the world!  (Eventually, they got
the right to stay by presidential order - but the damage in terms of public
relations abroad was already done).

Free trade in goods and *skilled* workers makes for better understanding
between nations - and that's something we all could use more of right now.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
Mail : <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>   WorkMail: <sjbaker at link.com>
URLs : http://www.sjbaker.org
       http://plib.sf.net http://tuxaqfh.sf.net http://tuxkart.sf.net
       http://prettypoly.sf.net http://freeglut.sf.net
       http://toobular.sf.net   http://lodestone.sf.net