Robbing Peter to pay Paul? Will us tech workers get screwed to help pass Immigration bill...

[cascadiance]

that just passed out of committee today in the Senate?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/us-usa-immigration-idUSBRE94K00L20130522

And just like with many other things, Obama praises the window dressing of the hidden ugly details that are in so many bills going through congress with his blessing these days.

The H-1B Visa expansion has had many like me steaming over many companies wanting to low-ball so many of us on salary by importing "indentured servant" cheap labor or threaten to outsource them overseas. In my book, this provision in the bill is as bad as cutting social security is when it doesn't belong in our "grand bargain" budget negotiations.

Too many corporatist Democrats are allowing this to get passed without really looking carefully on how it will be manipulated as it has in the past to screw more of us American workers who should be decent paid professionals in these careers and perhaps may at some point be faced with the choice of having to "retrain" to become something like plumbers instead so that we can have more organized union support and perhaps get paid more than being "engineers" that we trained and worked hard to gather expertise in the past.

This industry has many Libertarians in it, and I think it should have more Democrats. But is it any wonder that they aren't gaining more Democrats there if the Democrats keep turning their backs on people like us in legislation time and time again?

Thank you AFL-CIO for trying to help us with at least doing some degree of negotiations to keep Orrin Hatch's nightmare from fully being realized.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/300723-afl-cio-rallies-opposition-to-hatchs-h-1b-visa-amendments

It's one thing that in the past they were telling American workers that they needed to get more advanced education to pursue higher paying careers like high tech careers many years ago when the auto industry was being moved overseas and jobs were being lost. That arguably still wasn't a good excuse for taking away Americans' jobs then. But to tell American tech workers with computer science and other engineering degrees that they might have to "train down" to get a new career that can't be outsourced here like becoming a plumber supplemented by a side job working at McDonald's to replace their tech career jobs here just seems WRONG. And those in charge simply can't understand why newer college students don't pursue high tech degrees any more. Well, you are stacking the cards against them when you do that with the high costs of tuition now, along with the likelihood of not getting a job or having those that you might be able to get being outsourced or "insourced" to H-1B visa workers who have families living overseas that live on a 10th of the expenses that families live on here.

I personally have had a rough time staying employed over the last five years or so, and our sector now has become more of a "contractor job" rather than a career permanent job sector for so many workers, where you don't have any job security to speak of. I myself am having to move quickly to try to find work with my contractor job ending at the end of this month now two months earlier than anticipated.

Has anyone in the software industry thought of trying to perhaps get a SIG started that could in fact become a "union arm" of ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) so that we can start organizing the software industry's workforce? I think the time has come where that may be necessary to make it at least a more powerful worker's guild rather than just a professional organization that it has been. Then we could work more with those like the AFL-CIO to really plan out more comprehensive strategies together instead of just taking this kind of H-1B crap when it gets tossed our way.

And mind you, I DO like a diverse work force! I've lived overseas a good portion of my life and many of my friends over time have been a lot of different nationalities and ethnicities. That is why I moved to the coast. But I want a situation where the pathways to becoming a citizen here are made a lot more easy to obtain instead of only a temporary work visa that allows companies to exploit foreign workers without any voting or negotiating power that a citizen would have, and where most of their earnings get sent to other economies instead of recycled in to our own, and at the end of their worker permit terms, they take that expertise back to cities like Banagalore, which now has surpassed Silicon Valley as the "center" of high tech globally due to this race to the bottom that's allowed to occur.

[winter is coming]

1. They could call it SIGTHUG.

[Demo_Chris]

2. Answer: of course you are going to get screwed...

If there's a dollar to be made screwing any American worker they are gonna get the shaft eventually. It's not like we have anyone looking out for us.

[Skittles]

3. they have open contempt for American workers

fuck them

[MrSlayer]

4. This is a bad idea, which is why it will pass.

Anything to drive wages down and fuck the American worker. All of D.C. is working to undermine us, all of it. Scum.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Will is future tense. Were is the correct word.

Those that are still banging their heads against that wall are currently working like donkeys for 1/3 or less of what they are due, and the odds are that they are doing this under a boss that doesn't understand what they do or how it works, for a company that spends every minute of every day trying to figure out how to avoid paying them at all.

[cascadiance]

7. And is it any coincidence that companies like Apple and Google now are under scrutiny for sheltering

... money overseas in other tax havens. It's the same big game that they and people like Zuckerberg of Facebook are playing to try and scam as much cash from everyone and not be loyal to any country that has given them all of these "breaks" and subsidies.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. Not at all. Some of us tried to head this off, but along with a lack of social skills and a penchant

for pizza, arrogance is very common among developers. I can hardly believe it's been over 20 years since we began talking about organizing.

Obviously we failed. I was President of our AITP chapter and there was some talk about taking some union-ey steps with that, but Volt came along and bought us...

[cliffordu]

6. At first I thought it said:"Rubbing Peter to pay Paul...."

And I was like all "Hell yeah!!"

[Jasana]

8. I've met too many tech workers on the net that have been screwed by H1B

and too many in real life. If there is any way a business can screw you with this particular immigration program they will. Some people think this is new but my Union was hearing reports of it happening way back in the 1990ies. The companies were bringing Indians in and paying them half the salary to do the same job as American tech workers who had been fired

My Union (IUE) was thinking about trying to organize the tech workers out on the Route 128 belt but at the time, we were having enough trouble keeping ourselves viable. We just didn't have the time.

The only way you're going to stop it is to get organized.

[cascadiance]

9. Yep, I saw it happening first hand in the 90's when I worked in the bay area...

... when managers were laughing at how they could hire H-1B contractors through "body shops" that only hired H-1B Visas as a means to work around the "competitive salary restriction" that was supposed to have them pay equal salaries to what U.S. workers were making. They typically hired a worker not as a "worker" but as a "service" to also help hide this comparison between the body shop contract workers and those American workers working at the same company they were being hired in to.

I know the problem of time being lost in today's work environment. To get at least some reasonable pay my last few weeks of my contract, I couldn't make it to Salem yesterday on a trip that a PCP committee I was a part of took to meet with state reps yesterday. I'd like to be a participant in our democracy, but the way this crap is happening, it stands in the way of that happening.

[Iliyah]

10. Nopes

11 million by 1/2 to 1/2 to 1/2 will maybe get their visas to work but India techs and theirs will have an easlier way to comes into the US. They already have names like Cody, Cindy, when you talk to them on the telephone.

Come together, Beatles.

[jtuck004]

11. IT jobs will grow 22% through 2020, says U.S.

Here:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225673/IT_jobs_will_grow_22_through_2020_says_U.S.

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials on Thursday said that offshoring will hurt the growth of U.S. programming jobs in this decade, though expansion of healthcare IT and mobile networks will in turn increase demand for software developers, support technicians and systems analysts.
...
The IT employment growth rate projected by the BLS was characterized as "anemic" by Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, a research firm that analyzes IT wage and employment trends.

"When you consider the overall demand for systems and applications in high-growth markets like China and India, [the BLS projections] mean the U.S. will be doing a diminishing portion of the development and implementation work," said Janulaitis. "If that's the case, the U.S. will no longer be the leader in IT.

"The BLS projections are a bad sign for the U.S. IT graduates from universities. Those numbers do not cover the net growth necessary to give all of the graduates jobs," Janulaitis added.
...

And here: http://www.newgeography.com/content/002630-the-hardest-job-to-fill-in-2012-a-look-at-the-supply-web-developers

...

Writes Cline, “The demand for top-tier engineering talent sharply outweighs the supply in almost every market especially in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. This is a major, major pain point and problem that almost every company is facing, regardless of the technology ‘stack’ their engineers are working on.”
...

One way to determine labor shortages is by analyzing historic wages, coupled with employment trends, for an occupation; if wages are increasing over time, that’s a good sign of unmet demand in the market and hence, a shortage. The reason: demand from employers for additional workers would be so great that it would push up wages.

We looked at median earnings for programmers and computer software engineers from 2000-2010 using the BLS’ Current Population Survey (CPS) dataset, a monthly survey of US households. Adjusted for inflation, CPS data* shows programmers’ wages have essentially been flat (2% growth) since 2000. It’s a different story for software engineers; their wages increased 13% from 2000 to 2010.

But for both programmers and software engineers, real wages have declined since 2004. This make sense given the stagnant employment picture for programmers. Yet for software engineers, employment has increased more than 6% since 2009 while wages have held steady in recent years.
...

Yeah, what you said.

[dreamnightwind]

13. Follow the money, of course

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/us-usa-immigration-idUSBRE94K00L20130522

"The vote followed the committee's decision to embrace a Republican move to ease restrictions on high-tech U.S. companies that want to hire more skilled workers from countries like India and China."

...

"Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said the changes made to visa rules governing high-skilled workers, which he had demanded on behalf of the U.S. technology industry, were the price of his support for the bill when the committee voted. Hatch voted for the bill."

I didn't know there was anything that Orrin Hatch could do to diminish my respect for him, but he did it.

Surprisingly, he isn't particularly dependent on money from the tech sector. Imagine what he'd do for his main funding sources. Or maybe he's just diversifying his funding portfolio.

https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00009869&type=I&newmem=N

Top 20 Industries contributing to Campaign Cmte (Hatch)
MemberRank ? DistrictRank ? Industry ? Total ? Indivs ? PACs ?
1 5 Securities & Investment $1,103,146 $901,075 $202,071
2 7 Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $833,851 $272,710 $561,141
3 50 Lobbyists $508,067 $495,567 $12,500
4 35 Insurance $491,718 $132,044 $359,674
5 15 Lawyers/Law Firms $478,371 $257,290 $221,081
6 14 Health Professionals $452,715 $101,715 $351,000
7 3 Real Estate $412,394 $303,494 $108,900
8 23 Health Services/HMOs $396,132 $159,132 $237,000
9 22 Oil & Gas $394,550 $159,050 $235,500
10 21 Leadership PACs $391,878 $0 $391,878
11 27 Hospitals/Nursing Homes $378,000 $161,000 $217,000
12 13 Computers/Internet $259,150 $122,650 $136,500
13 10 Misc Finance $235,283 $188,783 $46,500
14 4 Business Services $214,310 $178,810 $35,500
15 37 TV/Movies/Music $207,531 $82,031 $125,500
16 6 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $173,350 $91,350 $82,000
17 17 Commercial Banks $168,983 $58,983 $110,000
18 66 Electric Utilities $159,900 $21,900 $138,000
19 1 Retired $159,573 $159,573 $0
20 55 Accountants $149,650 $86,150 $63,500

Orrin G. Hatch is a top recipient from the following industries for the 2007 - 2012 election cycle:

Health Services (#1)
Nutritional & dietary supplements (#1)
Pharm/Health Prod (#1)
Pharmaceutical manufacturing (#1)
Hospitals/Nurs Homes (#2)
Insurance (#2)
Medical supplies manufacturing & sales (#2)
Nurses (#2)
Private Equity & Investment Firms (#2)
Venture capital (#2)
Accountants (#3)
Air Transport (#3)
Auto manufacturers (#3)
Securities/Invest (#3)
Telecom Svcs/Equip (#3)

Of course it's not just about Hatch, it's a much more widespread problem of all of them doing the bidding of their funders rather than the bidding of their constituents. The committee vote was 13-5, so there's plenty of blame to go around. But Hatch apparently insisted on easing the hiring of high-tech workers from places like India and China, in order to give his support for the immigration bill. That's pretty messed up.

[shawn703]

14. As a tech worker myself

I never have and still don't feel threatened by immigrants driving down salaries. I've been in the industry for about 15 years and have only seen salaries go up. Six figure incomes are the norm for many positions, and there's often an artificial barrier to these positions for immigrants that don't natively speak English. If you keep yourself current on the latest technology, you won't have to worry.

[cascadiance]

17. Those in their late 20's through early 40's are probably still seeing some wage increases...

It is mostly those coming out of college now with huge debt that prevents many that might otherwise be more qualified from seeking a career in high tech BECAUSE of this crappy outsourcing and the expense and effort it takes to break in, or those of us in late 40's and older who have the experience, but perhaps are more liabilities to companies for things like health care costs, etc. now. Those very young and more senior high tech employees are the ones that are getting hit hard with lower salary expectations now. Having worked in this industry for close to 30 years, I've seen the H-1B visa mess in many forms.

Just think about the foreign workers that don't have rights to move to different jobs to get higher salaries, or have the right to vote or unionize here either. Companies LIKE it that way and are paying for programs like H-1B to get these kind of *features* of keeping down labor costs and any kind of worker organization.

Even H-1B Visa workers have to worry about where they live too. They are often shacked up in groups in small spaces of housing by their sponsors so that they can afford to live in expensive areas at their lower salaries, and I've personally seen neighbors across the hall get kicked out arbitrarily when their sponsor wanted to take their space to live on his own. This was after a good friend of mine moved out before his lease was up because they were going to jack up his rent about 30% right near the bust time of the dotcom bubble. I also left not long after him from that place for the same reason.

Many immigrants who TRULY want to be CITIZEN immigrants have far bigger barriers to this happening than just working here temporarily for these H-1B programs, because that is the way corporate America wants it to happen. Many wait for 10 years to get a VISA and perhaps have to marry an American or even have other family members also marry American citizens before they can become naturalized citizens. That in my book is wrong. THOSE are the people I want our companies investing in if they have a shortage of American workers and need certain skill sets. If we didn't bring in so many foreign workers with cheaper salaries coupled with outsourcing so many jobs overseas, THEN it would be more attractive for college students to risk the heavy debt loads they get for getting a tech degree to pursue a tech career here.

When I first started in the tech space in Silicon Valley back in the 80's it was totally a different atmosphere than it is now. There were hardly any layoffs then, and there wasn't these kind of jobs programs in place to drive wages down. THEN we had decent salaries and were paid what we were worth.

I don't feel threatened by immigrants either as I note. In fact I enjoy working with many of them. I just feel that this system is designed to screw both us and them to make bigger profits for the companies as is the case in so many other sectors where they are trying to buy the ability to drive down our wages.

And the high tech sector of software development, etc. is one area which hasn't been unionized over the years. Earlier, when things like health care coverage weren't as much of an obstacle for people doing their own entrepreneurship with their own startups and before we had the dotcom bomb, many SW engineers, etc. felt less need for union organization then when they had more opportunities in a freer and less consolidated market where startups were as much about going public and becoming successful entities as opposed to now where most startups that happen to survive are looking to be bought out instead of going public.

[bvar22]

15. Race to the Bottom.

The BIGGEST Scandal:

Corporate Profits Hit Record High While Worker Wages Hit Record Low
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/03/1270541/corporate-profits-wages-record/?mobile=nc

Things like this don't happen by accident.



[font color=firebrick][center]"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want a party that will STAND UP for Working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone [/font][/center]
[center][/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]


You will know them by their WORKS.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. They already screwed the LGBT community by removing protections from the

immigration bill, and to make it worse, they are already praising themselves for doing so, it's so bipartisan that it makes them tingle up the leg.