Thread: Red tape forces out top Caltrans workers

What a crock! If they are spending all this money to train and bring over these engineers (CHEAP LABOR?) then why in the hell can't they spend that on trainging AMERICANS? I am including comments from the person that sent me this. This is an OUTRAGE!

A story about foreign engineers at the California Dept. of Transportation
(Caltrans) is showing up in newspapers all across California. As the story
goes, Caltrans is losing foreign engineers because they can't get green
cards for their H-1B visa holders.

The story is bogus from the start. Employers like Caltrans can apply for a
7th year extension for their H-1B visa holders, and they can keep getting
extensions until they get a green card.

Two years ago Caltrans griped to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office that
they needed more visas, but Arnie and company gave them the runaround -
they said it was a federal problem not a state problem. In the interim two
years, Caltrans could have fixed their engineerig shortage by hiring
Americans but that's an option they must not have considered because they
would rather hire foreign engineers on H-1B visas.

In the past decade, Caltrans, like many private companies, has
coped with the shortage of U.S. engineers by recruiting Canadians,
Indians, Mexicans and other foreigners who have studied at U.S.
universities or at respected institutions abroad.

Caltrans is loathe to hire American engineers and will do everything they
can to avoid doing so. In their view, U.S. engineers are only "minimally
qualified". If American civil engineers are as poorly qualified as Caltrans
claims, couldn't someone at Caltrans have trained some of them in the two
years since they griped to Schwarzenegger's office? Instead they have
continued to hire H-1Bs and now they want to keep them permanently.

Caltrans has concluded that if it were to begin that screening
process, it would be forced to hire any minimally qualified U.S.
applicant who had passed a California state exam and was listed
on a state civil service list.


Caltrans is hiring mostly entry level engineers and some with a year of
experience. Their engineers don't even need a civil engineering degree -
any engineering degree will do. Caltrans says that they will hire any
engineer as long they have knowledge of civil engineering. Surely they can
find someone who can handle "simple mapping and drafting and make neat and
accurate computations and engineering notes".

I must assume that there are plenty of unemployed engineers that could do
the job also, but apparently Caltrans isn't willing to give them a chance
as long as they can hire H-1Bs.





http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cct ... 485830.htm

OR

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... trans.html


Posted on Sun, Sep. 10, 2006


Red tape forces out top Caltrans workers

Agency would like to keep skilled foreign engineers but is unable to
sponsor them for green cards
By Susan Ferriss and Mehul Srivastava
SACRAMENTO BEE

SACRAMENTO - Foreign engineers have been vital to the construction of
California's complex and mammoth highway system, but they are being pushed
out of jobs with the state Department of Transportation because of a
conflict between state hiring rules and federal immigration laws.

Dozens of foreign engineers in the past decade have left Caltrans because
their temporary work visas were going to expire, according to the union
that represents Caltrans engineers. Ninety-eight Caltrans employees -- 75
of them engineers -- are currently on H-1B work visas that last a maximum
of six years.

These engineers also will be forced to leave Caltrans unless the agency can
sponsor them for green cards, the permit that grants them legal permanent
residency.

Caltrans values the engineers, wants to hire them permanently and says it
is a colossal waste of money to let veteran professionals go after
investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in training and costs to process
their temporary visas.

Caltrans director Will Kempton first raised the issue with Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's office two years ago, pointing out that losses of
experienced foreign engineers have jeopardized Caltrans' goals.

The governor's office told Caltrans to research what could be done. The
agency's regretful conclusion: a tangle of state and federal laws prevent
it from even trying to sponsor them.

"There's a great shortage of skilled engineers in the country," said Bruce
Blanning, executive assistant for the Professional Engineers in California
Government, the union that represents Caltrans engineers and supports
obtaining green cards for the foreign engineers.

Blanning is skeptical of Caltrans' conclusion. He said he believes the
agency could make a good case to federal labor and immigration authorities
that California needs these engineers and that they should be given legal
permanent residency.

"These guys don't just do gutters and street corners," he said of the
engineers. "They do the big jobs."

Canadian native D'Arcy McLeod has been a Caltrans engineer for six years,
during which the agency has spent thousands of dollars to keep him current
on training, just as they do with all of the agency engineers.

Supervisors were so pleased with his performance, they asked McLeod if he
knew any skilled classmates in Canada who would like jobs here, too.

He recruited seven.

Today, six of McLeod's former Canadian classmates have already come and
gone because Caltrans did not sponsor them for green cards.

"It perplexes me that the state would invest in individuals who are legally
working here, and then not allow them to stay. You're losing historical
knowledge, you're losing that investment," said McLeod, who has been
responsible for making key freeway arteries such as Highway 80 safer. He
has only two years left on his second H-1B visa, a permit that is good for
three years and can be renewed only once.

Caltrans is the United States' largest state transportation department,
with about 8,500 engineers, but it is short 500 engineers even before a
predicted expansion of projects in the future.

If a $19.9 billion transportation bond in November's election passes,
demand for skilled engineers will dramatically increase.

In the past decade, Caltrans, like many private companies, has coped with
the shortage of U.S. engineers by recruiting Canadians, Indians, Mexicans
and other foreigners who have studied at U.S. universities or at respected
institutions abroad.

Competition for competent engineers is so stiff that foreign engineers are
often offered jobs in the private sector that pay more than public agencies
such as Caltrans and eventually lead to green cards.

At least three former Caltrans foreign engineers have gone to work for
private consulting firms that sponsored them for green cards and put the
engineers back to work on Caltrans projects as contract employees,
according to the Professional Engineers in California Government.

Each private engineer who works on a Caltrans project costs about $75,000 a
year more than a Caltrans employee would -- costs that could escalate as
the shortage prompts Caltrans to hire more private consultants.

Caltrans managers asked Schwarzenegger's administration for guidance two
years ago, saying: "Do something about this," said David Anderson, a
Caltrans public information officer.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Darrel Ng said the governor's office has since
accepted Caltrans' findings that it would be tough -- despite the shortages
-- to meet requirements for sponsoring foreign engineers for permanent
residency.

Kempton, the Caltrans director, declined to discuss the green card issue.
Mark DeSio, Caltrans deputy director of public information, explained the
agency's position in written answers to questions.

Kempton told the governor's office and the California Department of
Personnel Administration, which handles hiring policies, that "losing
employees after six years of training and development erodes the
department's qualified workforce and impairs its ability to meet project
delivery goals," DeSio wrote.

To hire a foreigner on a temporary H-1B professional visa, employers,
private or public, must pay a prevailing wage, but they do not have to
prove they could not find a U.S. citizen or legal resident to hire instead.

To sponsor someone for an employment-based green card, however, employers
must advertise a job first and prove to the U.S. Labor Department they
could not find a qualified U.S. worker.

Caltrans has concluded that if it were to begin that screening process, it
would be forced to hire any minimally qualified U.S. applicant who had
passed a California state exam and was listed on a state civil service
list.

Caltrans says it suspects that before permanently hiring foreign engineers,
it might instead have to hire inexperienced or even poorly qualified
U.S.-based applicants.

No excuses! Hire American's in America before looking to a foreign national to take an AMERICAN JOB!

It's time to protect our workforce and bring back jobs to America!

It is hard to believe that there are no qualified people for the job. If this is the case then why is no one else complaining. They just want cheap labor and now that it is out there.

From the below paragraph, extract the level of protection awared to US engineers in a similar career path:

To hire a foreigner on a temporary H-1B professional visa, employers,
private or public, must pay a prevailing wage, but they do not have to
prove they could not find a U.S. citizen or legal resident to hire instead.

1. Fact: the system is frequently 'gamed' to pay less than the prevailing wage to H1-B holders.
AND
2. If they do 'not have to prove they could not find a US citizen' instead - it also follows that they are not even required to try.

Too bad CalTrans, you will soon find the 'Sky is Falling' line falls on deaf ears and you might actually have to start hiring engineers by NOT selling out your fellow (citizen) engineers.