Thread: 3 reasons why the tech industry will lose its fight for more H-1B visas

Mar 17, 2015, 3:59pm EDT
Kent Hoover

The high-tech industry faces an uphill battle in its effort to increase the number of visas for high-skilled workers.

This priority was included in the comprehensive immigration reform that passed the Senate but went nowhere in the House last Congress. Now business groups are pushing stand-alone legislation that would increase the current cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 110,000, or as high as 195,000 if there is sufficient demand for high-skilled workers.

Judging from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, that bill — the Immigration Innovation Act, or I-Squared Act — doesn't stand much of a chance. Here are three reasons the tech industry isn't likely to get its way on the bill:

There may not even be a high-tech worker shortage

For years, the high-tech industry has contended that they can't find enough workers with the skills they need. Many foreigners study at U.S. universities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM), and America benefits if these graduates use their skills to create new jobs in the U.S. instead of in foreign countries.

This argument was represented at the hearing by Bjorn Billhardt, founder and president of Enspire, a software firm based in Austin, Texas. The native of Germany started his firm while he was at Harvard Business School on a student visa. He was able to stay in the U.S. through an H-1B visa, then a green card. in 2012, he became a U.S. citizen. Now Enspire employs 30 people — jobs that wouldn't exist if Billhardt hadn't been able to pursue his dream in the U.S.

As far as Billhardt is concerned, there's no doubt that U.S. tech companies struggle to find the talent they need. In Austin, he said, "there are help wanted signs in every company I know," he said.

But these signs of a worker shortage are countered by layoffs at high-profile tech companies, including Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, over the past couple of years.

Plus, only half of new STEM graduates from U.S. universities are finding jobs in the STEM industry, according to Rutgers University professor Hal Salzman, who conducted research funded by the Sloan Foundation and National Science Foundation. If the cap on H-!B visas were raised, there would be more than enough guest workers to fill every new tech job that's expected to be created in the near future, he said.

Some companies use H-1B visas to displace American workers

Southern California Edison (SCE) was cited repeatedly at the hearing as an example of how some U.S. companies are using the H-1B visa program not to fill positions that were sitting vacant, but to reduce labor costs by laying off American workers and getting lower-paid foreigners to do the work. In this case, the company contracted out information technology work to overseas-based IT consulting companies, who then used H-1B visas to hire foreign workers to do these jobs.

Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he has heard from some of the 500 Southern California Edison employees who were laid off as a result of this decision.

"The company forced them to sign non-disparagement agreements in order to receive their severance package," Grassley said. "The U.S. workers had to train their replacements — for weeks and months — knowing all along that they were going to lose their jobs to cheaper workers who didn't possess the skills they had. They said it was humiliating."

Plus, most these jobs eventually will be moved overseas, he said.

Southern California Edison, which declined an invitation to testify at the hearing, is not alone; hiring cheaper H-1B visa workers to replace American workers has become a business model at many companies, said Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy at Howard University and a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute.

There are "mainframe-sized loopholes built into the H-1B program's design" that encourage employers to use the program to reduce labor costs, he said.

"Even when they are not replacing American workers, employers turn to H-1B workers without ever considering American workers," Hira said.

To protect American workers, H-1B visa recipients are supposed to be paid the "prevailing wage," but the rules enforcing this requirement "are poorly designed and written," Hira said. In Southern California Edison's case, the H-1B workers who are replacing laid-off Americans are getting paid $40,000 less for the "exact same jobs," Hira said.

Labor unions oppose stand-alone legislation raising H-1B cap

Raising the H-1B visa cap was part of the Senate comprehensive immigration reform passed by the Senate, which was endorsed by the AFL-CIO. The union still supports comprehensive immigration reform, but it will oppose any move to raise the H-!B visa as stand-alone legislation, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the committee.

This bill "would take us exactly in the wrong direction," he said.

"As currently structured, the H-1B visa program allows employers to stifle wages, create a captive workforce, and make previously full-time jobs insecure and temporary," Trumka said.

The AFL-CIO's opposition to the I-Squared Act will limit Democratic support for the bill. Many Republicans, including Grassley, whose committee has jurisdiction over the legislation, oppose it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjourna...s.html?s=print

This argument was represented at the hearing by Bjorn Billhardt, founder and president of Enspire, a software firm based in Austin, Texas. The native of Germany started his firm while he was at Harvard Business School on a student visa. He was able to stay in the U.S. through an H-1B visa, then a green card. in 2012, he became a U.S. citizen. Now Enspire employs 30 people — jobs that wouldn't exist if Billhardt hadn't been able to pursue his dream in the U.S.

These aren't jobs filled by American Workers, they're filled with H1B foreign workers. He made the point that he couldn't have started his business without H1B workers. 30 people? Most of them foreign workers? This is the best they could do at the hearing to show we have a shortage? It's laughable.

I knew he didn't employ very many because I looked up his company and it's big talking, but a very small outfit. So what if he moves his business to Germany? Or Australia? Let him go! Germany is a nice high-tech country, why did he want to stay here after he graduated from Harvard? What was he doing at Harvard to begin with? Taking a seat from an American Kid whose dream it was to go to Harvard? Now he's wormed his way in through a green card to citizenship. Why? Why would someone like this leave a nice high-tech all solar country like Germany? Now he's the only American employer called to testify about the H1B visa expansion program? Why?

He's not really an employer of consequence, and not really an American. That's why he's there lying his ass off about worker shortages to undercut American Workers. Real Americans would never betray American Workers with lies to try to increase the importation of foreign labor to replace them. Oh no, True Americans would never do that, Bjorn.

So I hope members of Congress and the American Voters are paying attention and see the lies, irony, deceptions, the sources of it, and call a spade the spade it actually is.

Many thanks to the Professors from Rochester Institute of Technology and Rutgers and the AFL-CIO President and many others on the witness panel who stood up for the American People by standing up against the lies about our American workforce, and hiss boo to the ones who didn't but instead came armed with lies, falsehoods and deception.

Originally Posted by Jean

There may not even be a high-tech worker shortage


Some companies use H-1B visas to displace American workers

Labor unions oppose stand-alone legislation raising H-1B cap

What "May not"?
Only half of new STEM graduates from U.S. universities are finding jobs in the STEM industry, according to Rutgers University professor Hal Salzman, who said, "If the cap on H-!B visas were raised, there would be more than enough guest workers to fill every new tech job that's expected to be created in the near future."

Let's be honest here: The only reason to increase H-1B visas is to demonstrate yet again that the United States is being run for the convenience of corporations.

If we are sincere about wanting to have a visa program which is good for American workers - who will be spending their money and paying their taxes right here in the good old U.S.A. - our visa program should be a simple moratorium, until we achieve a balance between American STEM graduates and American STEM jobs.
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