Thread: H1-B visas

While we concentrate on illegal immigration, the situation with the H1-B visas is also hurting the American worker. Here is an update from John Miano from the programmers guild. Companies are openly and blatantly advertising for foreign workers! I'm sure a word of encouragement from us to this guild would be appreciated!


by John Miano
http://www.programmersguild.org/
6/28/2006

Most of us in the computer industry are aware that discrimination against
U.S. workers is widespread. There are many companies that simply do not
hire U.S. workers in favor of foreign guestworkers.

In the past this practice of discrimination has taken place under cover. We
knew who these companies were and did not bother applying. They knew that if they received a resume from a U.S. worker that it was probably a test.
The practice of "H-1B only" hiring has become so established that employers now feel free to engage in it openly. Over the past few weeks I have found over 1,500 "H-1B only" ads from over 350 employers.

The Programmers Guild is in the process of filing complaints against
employers making this job postings that are intended to prevent U.S.
workers from applying. We filing two types of complaints.

The first type of complaint is with the Office of Special Counsel for
Immigration-Related Employment Discrimination in the Department of Justice.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, discrimination based upon
immigration status is illegal.

We have filed a number of similar complaints in the past and have been
successful in all but one of them. The challenge now is that we are
persuing a large volume of complaints at once. Unfortunately, the penalties in the previous type of complaint are rather small. So we are filing a second type of complaint with the Wage & Hour division of the Department of Labor. In these, we allege that H-1B dependent employers are not recruiting U.S. workers in "Good Faith". So far we have not had much success with complaints to the Department of Labor. For our first attempt we sent copies of 130 advertisements from a single employer. The Department of Labor responded that this was not sufficient evidence to investigate.

If 130 ads stating the company prefers H-1B holders or that only H-1B
holders can apply is not sufficient evidence to even investigate, what is?

What happens in the case of a big H-1B bodyshop that does not advertise in the U.S. at all?

The bottom line is the law is very weak when it comes to protecting U.S.
workers. However, we are using the avenues available to us to bring
complaints against companies that violate the law.

I hope he also forward a copy to the vew interested anti-illegal Congressman we have on Capitol Hill. CNN's Lou Dobb's probably also be interested in running a story on this. Trying to go through the Washington beauracracy isn't going to work, not as long as the Bush administration holds the strings. The position of United States Attorney General is a prime example of that.

This sort of information has to get to the people that care the most, and unfortunately that doesn't happen to be any official that President Bush controls. Once again, copies of the formal complaint need shotgunned to our friends (very few) in the media and anti-illegal Congressman.

agreed! It is basically the people against the a self centered, greedy government that does not give a rats rear end about the people!