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In reply to the discussion: Obama finalizing plans to have your tech job replaced by foreigners [View all]cascadiance
(19,537 posts)Both of these "guest worker" programs are there to allow the 1% employers to have "legal" means of exploiting indentured servant labor, and not have to rely on the government stop enforcing laws being broken by ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS that was started by Ronald Reagan's administration after amnesty was passed.
The difference is, is that for most lower wage jobs, it is easier for the employer to exploit and really abuse undocumented workers who are more apt to let them get away with such abuse than for workers with high tech backgrounds who work at H-1B jobs here. The tech industry wouldn't be able to get away with hiring people illegally without getting exposed and called to task for it and therefore they needed a program that they could bend the rules to get the same sort of "slave labor" that they could abuse as illegals.
After Katrina, they needed a lot of workers to help rebuild Louisiana, and in that case relied on the H-2B program which is similar to H-1B but hires average workers that might come in illegally otherwise. Now, if you look at the older news reports and how those brought in from other countries and the kind of abuse they put these people under (holding their passports hostage, etc.), you'll see how these sorts of "guest worker" programs should be SHUT DOWN or far better regulated. With Katrina they could have and SHOULD have hired residents of that area to do this work when they really needed it to get a living and housing again.
http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/archive/2013/06/28/multiple-trafficking-rico-civil-rights-violations-lawsuits-filed-on-behalf-of-h-2b-visa-workers.aspx
This isn't just about us STEM employees feeling like we are "special" and shouldn't be subject to H-1B competition. This sort of guest worker program is a threat to all American jobs and industries if we let it get institutionalized here and will take us further down the path of an oligarchy with no middle class.
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