Better Late to the Table then Eating Out at the 5 Star...H1b Reform

[primative1]

2 Senators probing outsourcing/visa connection

Durbin & Grassley are quizzing outsourcing companies
Here's a snippet from the Business Week article. Now reward good behavior by faxing your support to them below. BTW, outsourcing is not currently economically viable without the guest worker programs of H-1B & L-1.

May 15, 2007

Just how much the program advances U.S. competitiveness will come under closer scrutiny now. Durbin and Grassley have taken a much harder-edged approach to high-skill immigration than their parties have in the past. The senators say they want to ensure temporary worker programs can't be used to take advantage of American workers. "Considering the high amount of fraud and abuse in the visa program, we need to take a good, hard look at the employers who are using H-1B visas and how they are using them," says Grassley.

The letters probe a number of areas, including whether workers brought into the U.S. on H-1B visas are paid less that comparable American workers, a disparity that could drive down overall wages. The senators ask whether the visas are being used to train people in jobs that will later be moved back to India or other countries. And they request data on American workers who may have been laid off as H-1B workers have been hired.

"We are concerned that the program is not being used as Congress intended," wrote Durbin and Grassley in a letter to Nandan Nilekani, the chief executive of Infosys. Infosys did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Durbin and Grassley have introduced legislation that make a number of changes in the temporary worker programs. The most radical change would be a requirment that companies applying for the visas attempt to hire U.S. workers first. Currently, applicants need to pledge to pay the prevailing wage, but they don't need to make any effort to hire Americans (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/26/07, ";Immigration Reform: Americans First?"). The legislation would also require companies to pay higher wages to temporary workers and tighten oversight of the visa programs.

But resolving differences over the program won't be easy. It's not as simple as making the H-1B program more restrictive. U.S. tech companies have struggled to bring in enough workers to fill jobs in specialized fields. Even if foreign outsourcers are stopped from using the visas, there will continue to be shortages. This year, the 65,000 annual cap for H-1Bs was filled in less than two days.

Nor is there an easy distinction between U.S. and non-U.S. firms. While Durbin and Grassley's investigation is focused on Indian outsourcing firms, U.S. companies may very well be using the visas for much the same thing. Among the most active applicants for H-1B visas are Accenture (ACN) and Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH). Both are officially headquartered in the U.S., but they have extensive outsourcing operations in India.

Donna Conroy, Director
brightfuturejobs.org


Fax Your Congrats to Durbin & Grassley for H-1B Reform

Fax your congratulations to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Charles Grassley for standing up to the technology fat cats and giving all Americans and US residents a chance to compete for top dollar, white-collar jobs.

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1. K & R

Way past time for a probe of this.