H1B Work Visa

[Monica02]

With all of the discussion by the Church on immigration out there these days, has anyone discussed the morality of American workers being displaced by the H1B visa program? Most of the talk has centered on illegal immigration. The H1B program allows businesses to actively recruit foreigners (mostly from India and China) for so-called high- tech positions that supposedly cannot be filled by the American workforce.

 

[Ridgerunner]

With all of the discussion by the Church on immigration out there these days, has anyone discussed the morality of American workers being displaced by the H1B visa program? Most of the talk has centered on illegal immigration. The H1B program allows businesses to actively recruit foreigners (mostly from India and China) for so-called high- tech positions that supposedly cannot be filled by the American workforce.

There’s no “romance” to H1B. No sad anecdotal stories. No ethnic outrage to stir up. No way to charge “racism”. (The “victims” of H1B are, after all, largely…well, you know the color.)

 

[Cristiano]

With all of the discussion by the Church on immigration out there these days, has anyone discussed the morality of American workers being displaced by the H1B visa program? Most of the talk has centered on illegal immigration. The H1B program allows businesses to actively recruit foreigners (mostly from India and China) for so-called high- tech positions that supposedly cannot be filled by the American workforce.

What is the morality problem? Things are not done illegally. Competition is the American way, the sad part is that a lot of Americans are not prepared to compete or willing to do so. This is exactly the same argument that was discussed a few weeks ago on the Italian television. More and more restaurants in Milan are being owned by Chinese people.When the new owners were interviewed they claimed that they can compete with the Italians workers because they are willing to make many more sacrifices to keep the same quality and to bring the cost down.

 

[Monica02]

What is the morality problem? Things are not done illegally. Competition is the American way, the sad part is that a lot of Americans are not prepared to compete or willing to do so. This is exactly the same argument that was discussed a few weeks ago on the Italian television. More and more restaurants in Milan are being owned by Chinese people.When the owners were interviewed they claimed that they can compete with the Italians workers because they are willing to make many more sacrifices to keep the same quality and to bring the cost down.

What exactly do you mean by Americans not being prepared or willing to compete? What do you mean by “sacrifices” to bring costs down?

 

[Birdpreacher]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Great movie documenting the precursor to the modern H2B/H2A working programs.

Why you will never hear about this

1. The Workers can’t/won’t speak out

• Most of these workers spent what little money they had getting a hold of a visa. They can’t afford to complain/get legal counsel/lose the job the visa provides for
• obviously, the workers can’t call their congressman. They have no one representing their interests when it comes to making Labor/Immigration policy

1. The Job Creators really really like using cheap foreign labor

• The employers (especially hospitality employers and sea food processing employers) not only get to call a congressman, but also get to make campaign donations to them. Hence you have all the power in their hands.

Link to a map where you can see the businesses that have applied for H2-B visas, its very easy to use and the results will surprise you
hd.net/guest-worker-coverage/h2bmap/

 

[Monica02]

There’s no “romance” to H1B. No sad anecdotal stories. No ethnic outrage to stir up. No way to charge “racism”. (The “victims” of H1B are, after all, largely…well, you know the color.)

No sad stories? I do not know whether to laugh or cry.

A friend from Church had to train his Indian H1B replacement as a condition of receiving severance pay. I guess his 20 years at the company and his having to train the H1B indicates that he was not qualified to do his job.

 

[Birdpreacher]

What is the morality problem? Things are not done illegally. Competition is the American way, the sad part is that a lot of Americans are not prepared to compete or willing to do so. This is exactly the same argument that was discussed a few weeks ago on the Italian television. More and more restaurants in Milan are being owned by Chinese people.When the new owners were interviewed they claimed that they can compete with the Italians workers because they are willing to make many more sacrifices to keep the same quality and to bring the cost down.

just because something is labeled as legal dosent mean its moral. Afterall laws can be flawed. FOr example we know that abortion is wrong despite it being legal and the some of the Bishops know that the current immigration policy is flawed despite it being “legal”.

The thing about the Visa workers is that it is as unamerican as can be. There is no Competition

• Worker must jump through various hoops just to be eligible for the program this often involves bribes as there is no one policing the program with the necessary scrutiny
• THe worker can only work for the employer that his visa provides for, thus the free market for labor is denied to him
• the employer has already lost on the free market, he cant get American labor to work at the prices he wants, so he engages in negotiations with a population of people who cant afford to enforce any of the labor laws on the books in this country.

 

[Monica02]

just because something is labeled as legal dosent mean its moral. Afterall laws can be flawed. FOr example we know that abortion is wrong despite it being legal and the some of the Bishops know that the current immigration policy is flawed despite it being “legal”.

The thing about the Visa workers is that it is as unamerican as can be. There is no Competition

• Worker must jump through various hoops just to be eligible for the program this often involves bribes as there is no one policing the program with the necessary scrutiny
• THe worker can only work for the employer that his visa provides for, thus the free market for labor is denied to him
• the employer has already lost on the free market, he cant get American labor to work at the prices he wants, so he engages in negotiations with a population of people who cant afford to enforce any of the labor laws on the books in this country.

This is all very true. So what good are the American labor laws? Similarly, all of the merchandise imported from third world nations makes our labor laws useless.

 

[Cristiano]

What exactly do you mean by Americans not being prepared or willing to compete? What do you mean by “sacrifices” to bring costs down?

Let me start from the end. When I was referring to sacrifices to bring costs down I was mentioning the fact that the Chinese owners of restaurants in Milan are willing to work 7 days a week and 16 hours a day and their families do the same. I also think that sometime they treat their Italian employees with much more respect then the Italian owners.

In relation to the American scenario I can speak only out of my experience. I have worked for the university system physics/engineering for 10 years and then I moved to the semiconductor industry for 18 more years. First the educational system is really targeted at teaching skills more than at educating people toward love for learning and developing a taste for knowledge. I can see that especially now that I am directly involved in looking for colleges for my son. Second it is a culture of entitlement, a lot of people feel that they are owned jobs and security just because they have skills and that is false and dangerous because people loose flexibility and adaptability. Third I noticed that a lot of people become comfortable and they are not willing to learn more everyday, I have seen a lot of intellectual inertia and that is very dangerous especially for senior employees with higher salaries. People confuse seniority with experience and capability, that is not always true.
I am not saying that American in general are not able to confront an immigration of highly capable incomers; however, the good ones want rewards that immigrants do not seek as necessary. A lot of high tech industries are now turning into commodity churners and thus the costs must be kept down, a few are willing to take a 10% pay cut and stick with the company a lot are ready to jump ship as soon as a better offer is out.

 

[Cristiano]

just because something is labeled as legal dosent mean its moral. Afterall laws can be flawed. FOr example we know that abortion is wrong despite it being legal and the some of the Bishops know that the current immigration policy is flawed despite it being “legal”.

The thing about the Visa workers is that it is as unamerican as can be. There is no Competition

• Worker must jump through various hoops just to be eligible for the program this often involves bribes as there is no one policing the program with the necessary scrutiny
• THe worker can only work for the employer that his visa provides for, thus the free market for labor is denied to him
• the employer has already lost on the free market, he cant get American labor to work at the prices he wants, so he engages in negotiations with a population of people who cant afford to enforce any of the labor laws on the books in this country.

It sounds to me that you are complaining that Americans have more greed than the immigrants.

First you have to prove corruption, that seems to be part of the American system and foreigners might take advantage of it.

Second if an immigrant can only work for one company there is nothing wrong about that, he knows very well that he as no immediate access to the free market when he accepts the job offer and the visa. Are you saying that immigrants should have more freedom to further compete for US jobs?

I am sorry but I do not understand you third point, would you please elaborate a little bit more on it.

 

[Cristiano]

This is all very true. So what good are the American labor laws? Similarly, all of the merchandise imported from third world nations makes our labor laws useless.

I am not sure how cheaper imported goods make the US labor laws useless. Which specific labor laws are you referring to? I am not sure that I follow your logic.

I also think that the problem is that Americans want to buy cheap and they rather buy imported stuff from China at Walmart rather than paying a higher premium at a local retailer. I made my political choice to pay a higher price and support the local economy but I would be naive at best to expect to support local manufacturing by paying the same lower costs of imported goods.

 

[Cristiano]

http://images.highspeedbackbone.net/skuimages/large/BT-YYB1-767685989234.jpg

Great movie documenting the precursor to the modern H2B/H2A working programs.

Why you will never hear about this

1. The Workers can’t/won’t speak out

• Most of these workers spent what little money they had getting a hold of a visa. They can’t afford to complain/get legal counsel/lose the job the visa provides for
• obviously, the workers can’t call their congressman. They have no one representing their interests when it comes to making Labor/Immigration policy

1. The Job Creators really really like using cheap foreign labor

• The employers (especially hospitality employers and sea food processing employers) not only get to call a congressman, but also get to make campaign donations to them. Hence you have all the power in their hands.

Link to a map where you can see the businesses that have applied for H2-B visas, its very easy to use and the results will surprise you
hd.net/guest-worker-coverage/h2bmap/

This thread is about H1B visas and not about H2A visas, two very different topics.

 

[Monica02]

Let me start from the end. When I was referring to sacrifices to bring costs down I was mentioning the fact that the Chinese owners of restaurants in Milan are willing to work 7 days a week and 16 hours a day and their families do the same. I also think that sometime they treat their Italian employees with much more respect then the Italian owners.

In relation to the American scenario I can speak only out of my experience. I have worked for the university system physics/engineering for 10 years and then I moved to the semiconductor industry for 18 more years. First the educational system is really targeted at teaching skills more than at educating people toward love for learning and developing a taste for knowledge. I can see that especially now that I am directly involved in looking for colleges for my son. Second it is a culture of entitlement, a lot of people feel that they are owned jobs and security just because they have skills and that is false and dangerous because people loose flexibility and adaptability. Third I noticed that a lot of people become comfortable and they are not willing to learn more everyday, I have seen a lot of intellectual inertia and that is very dangerous especially for senior employees with higher salaries. People confuse seniority with experience and capability, that is not always true.
I am not saying that American in general are not able to confront an immigration of highly capable incomers; however, the good ones want rewards that immigrants do not seek as necessary. A lot of high tech industries are now turning into commodity churners and thus the costs must be kept down, a few are willing to take a 10% pay cut and stick with the company a lot are ready to jump ship as soon as a better offer is out.

Any business owner (Italy, America, anywhere) probably works long hours for his own business. I have no problem with that. I did not see the show you are referring to.
Do you feel that because the Chinese restaurant owners work long hours American workers should be happy to let companies recruit foreigners (who do not work long hours by the way - one H1B in my lab would not even bother to show up for meetings) over qualified Americans?

What “rewards” are you talking about?

 

[Ridgerunner]

No sad stories? I do not know whether to laugh or cry.

A friend from Church had to train his Indian H1B replacement as a condition of receiving severance pay. I guess his 20 years at the company and his having to train the H1B indicates that he was not qualified to do his job.

I did not express myself well. There are no politically popular or “politically correct” sad stories relating to H1B. Sad news stories relating to immigration are all pretty much focused on illegal immigrants because doing so has political effectiveness. Telling the story of some native-born, highly skilled male, particularly if he’s white and non-union, being replaced by an H1B worker just doesn’t have that political punch.

This administration (and therefore the media) has pretty much written off that demographic.

 

[Monica02]

I am not sure how cheaper imported goods make the US labor laws useless. Which specific labor laws are you referring to? I am not sure that I follow your logic.

I also think that the problem is that Americans want to buy cheap and they rather buy imported stuff from China at Walmart rather than paying a higher premium at a local retailer. I made my political choice to pay a higher price and support the local economy but I would be naive at best to expect to support local manufacturing by paying the same lower costs of imported goods.

Child labor, minimum wage, overtime and 40 hour work week. America has these laws but if we import products from countries where these laws are not used then we still support unjust labor practices.

I totally agree that Americans want to buy cheap. Clothes are cheaper now than they were 20 years ago. I find it almost impossible to buy anything made in the USA. I consider it a small “victory” if I find anything not made in China and am thrilled if I find something made in the USA.

 

[Monica02]

I did not express myself well. There are no politically popular or “politically correct” sad stories relating to H1B. Sad news stories relating to immigration are all pretty much focused on illegal immigrants because doing so has political effectiveness. Telling the story of some native-born, highly skilled male, particularly if he’s white and non-union, being replaced by an H1B worker just doesn’t have that political punch.

This administration (and therefore the media) has pretty much written off that demographic.

I know it has no punch. I know no news agency, politician (R or D) will even talk about H1B. Senator Durbin (Illinois) brought the subject of abuse of the system up but it got no traction.

 

[Cristiano]

Child labor, minimum wage, overtime and 40 hour work week. America has these laws but if we import products from countries where these laws are not used then we still support unjust labor practices.

I totally agree that Americans want to buy cheap. Clothes are cheaper now than they were 20 years ago. I find it almost impossible to buy anything made in the USA. I consider it a small “victory” if I find anything not made in China and am thrilled if I find something made in the USA.

I see what you are saying, and that it is one of the reasons why I rather pay more hoping to purchase something that is more “local”. Even when it comes to buy the same local goods I still rather shop at a store that sells only local vs. a store that gives preference to cheaper but imported goods.

I was confused by your statement because you started talking about H1B visas and those are for highly skilled workers, usually Master degrees and PhDs.

 

[Birdpreacher]

This thread is about H1B visas and not about H2A visas, two very different topics.

My bad I thought the thread was about the morality of H1B visas in regards to how they prevent American workers from holding jobs. I thought that if we are talking about unjust visas then the H2A and H2B visas which rob thousands of Americans of jobs were on topic.

 

[Cristiano]

Any business owner (Italy, America, anywhere) probably works long hours for his own business. I have no problem with that. I did not see the show you are referring to.
Do you feel that because the Chinese restaurant owners work long hours American workers should be happy to let companies recruit foreigners (who do not work long hours by the way - one H1B in my lab would not even bother to show up for meetings) over qualified Americans?

What “rewards” are you talking about?

The TV show was on the Italian television and not on US networks, Italy has some issues on handling immigration too.

Please do not mix highly skilled workers with restaurant workers, two different topics. I have very strong opinions in regard these two different categories of visas and workers and they might contradict themselves if generalized across any class of workers.

 

[Birdpreacher]

Oh here are the differences:

H-1B

This visa covers a broad range of technical occupations, government research opportunities and permission for notable fashion models to work in the U.S. The visa is valid for three years, after which renewal is possible for another three years. At this point a person may also apply for a “green card” or permanent resident card. There are three basic types of H-1B visas. The H1B permits people with Bachelor’s degrees or higher to work. The H1B2 is for government research and development work that is usually agreed upon by both governments involved. And the H1B3 is available for very well-known fashion models.

H-2B

This is a temporary visa for a foreign employee in a non-agricultural field.The visa has to be requested by the employer, with specific information about the work the employee will be involved in and for how long. The employer must also show that the work being done does not compete with a U.S. worker in a similar position. This ensures that U.S. jobs are not at risk of being lost to immigrants willing to work for less.

ehow.com/info_8318761_differences-between-h1b-h2b.html

So basicly the H1B = Scientists, Researchers, Models while H2B = Waiters, Maids, Sea Food processors (basically more menial labor jobs which any american could perform.)