Thread: OPPOSE INCREASE IN H1B VISAS!! CALL NOW!

NO TO AN INCREASE IN H1B VISAS!

Microsoft is trying to further flood the US with foreigh tech workers as an unending source of cheap skilled labor (engineers, scientists, computer software engineers, etc) displacing American workers and driving down wages.

DO NOT LET MICROSOFT WIN!!!

PLEASE CALL THESE SENATE AND HOUSE LEADERS ASAP AND URGE THEM TO OPPOSE ANY INCREASE IN HIB VISAS, AND DON'T LET SENATOR CORNYN SNEAK THIS INTO THE LAME DUCK SESSION!

See explanation below from NumbersUSA.


Senate Majority Republican Leaders
Sen. Frist (R-TN) 202-224-3344
Sen. McConnell (R-KY) 202-224-2541
Sen. Santorum (R-PA) 202-224-6324
Sen. Kyl (R-AZ) 202-224-4521
Sen. Lott (R-MS) 202-224-6253

Senate Minority Democratic Leaders
Sen. Reid (D-NV) 202-224-3542
Sen. Durbin (D-IL) 202-224-2152
Sen. Dodd (D-CT) 202-224-2823

House Majority Republican Leaders
Rep. Hastert (R-IL) 202-225-2976
Rep. Boehner (R-OH) 202-225-6205
Rep. Blunt (R-MO) 202-225-6536
Rep. Cantor (R-VA) 202-225-2815

House Minority Democratic Leaders
Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) 202-225-4965
Rep. Hoyer (D-MD) 202-225-4131
Rep. Emmanuel (D-IL) 202-225-4061

__________________________________________________ _____
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Thursday 7DEC06 3:15 a.m. EST


Phone Senators this morn -- Cornyn SKIL Act giant increase in foreign workers ready to pass

YOU'VE STOPPED EVERY OTHER IMMIGRATION DISASTER THIS YEAR ...

... NOW STOP THIS LAST ATTEMPT BEFORE CONGRESS GOES HOME

Please phone the congressional leaders listed below and urge them:

"Do NOT entertain debate on Sen. Cornyn's H-1B bill. Oppose all increases in H-1B visas."

Capitol Switchboard
202-224-3121

By the time you wake up later this morning and read this, Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) will be well on his way to ramming through a bill to radically increase foreign workers in the tech, nursing, physical therapy, science and engineering fields.

Believe me, the only way to defeat this last-minute desperation attempt by Robber Baron Tech Corporations to keep wages low is if Senate offices are stunned today by the public outcry against this disreputable maneuver.

A swarm of Microsoft lobbyists -- surely reeking of the musty odor of giant wads of campaign contributions -- buzzed and stang their way through Senate offices Wednesday, demanding that they and others of their ilk be given hundreds of thousands more foreign workers next year.

Will you let them once again get their way at the very last minute of a Congress?


PHONE THESE CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS NOW


I am sending this email to the more than 20,000 of you who have told us that you (or somebody close to you) works in the tech, nursing, physical therapy, science or engineering field.

I am also sending a similar alert to the other 215,000 members of the NumbersUSA Network, asking them to call their own Senators on this matter.

But I am asking you to go to the leaders of Senate and House who are most in a position to stop the Microsoft/Cornyn effort.

If you have any connection to the suffering caused by the H-1B program, mention it to the staffer.

Please call as many of these as you can:

Senate Majority Republican Leaders
Sen. Frist (R-TN)
Sen. McConnell (R-KY)
Sen. Santorum (R-PA)
Sen. Kyl (R-AZ)
Sen. Lott (R-MS)

Senate Minority Democratic Leaders
Sen. Reid (D-NV)
Sen. Durbin (D-IL)
Sen. Dodd (D-CT)

House Majority Republican Leaders
Rep. Hastert (R-IL)
Rep. Boehner (R-OH)
Rep. Blunt (R-MO)
Rep. Cantor (R-VA)

House Minority Democratic Leaders
Rep. Pelosi (D-CA)
Rep. Hoyer (D-MD)
Rep. Emmanuel (D-IL)

Tell Senate leaders to not let Cornyn's bill come up on the floor for any kind of discussion.

Tell House leaders to inform Senate leaders that they will NOT bring the bill up if the Senate passes it.
in this email:
1. Call these congressional leaders

2. A key fact for your call

3. The short story of Sen. Cornyn's perfidy against American workers

4. MORE ARGUING POINTS
actions in brief:
Phone Senate & House leaders to stop giant increase in foreign skilled workers.

Refer all friends to the NumbersUSA.com website.

Check for your latest free faxes to send to Congress & the Administration at:
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A KEY FACT FOR YOUR CALL


The United States has lost 700,000 high-tech American jobs in the past 4 years.

The country is awash in American tech workers who are now unemployed or working outside their field. While the tech lobbyists claim the companies face a labor shortage and won't be able to keep providing benefits to the economy without more foreign labor, there are plenty of skilled Americans available.

Same thing goes for nurses and physical therapists. Offer better pay for nursing and underemployed nurses will come out of the woodwork.

Each year, thousands of American students who qualify can't get into Physical Therapy schools because the schools feel no pressure to expand their enrollment while such a large percentage of physical therapy jobs are being filled by foreign therapists.

The message to Congress must be that it should NOT foreclose the future for our own American students who are seeking jobs in these fields.


The Short Story of Sen. Cornyn's Perfidy Against American Skilled Workers


Americans had been assured that the clock had already run out on this kind of sneak-pass play. Congress was supposed to be in town this week just to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep the federal government funded.

But tech industry lobbyists -- desperate to continue to hold down wages with foreign labor -- have stopped the legislative clock.

A near-football team of Microsoft blockers, tackles and fleet-footed lobbyists (10 of them!) roamed the Senate hallways Wednesday looking for a way score on their usual last-minute, rule-breaking, end-of-Congress style.

Many times in recent years, Microsoft and other tech lobbyists have sneaked through major increases in H-1B visas just as Congress was leaving town.

Since being publicly embarrassed in the late 1990s by debating the merits of this kind of legislation publicly, Congress has declined to pass these H-1B visa increases in the true light of day, with standard debate and using normal procedures.

But nearly all inside staffers told us they had received assurances from congressional leaders that no sneak play would be allowed this year.

On Tuesday, Senate staffers were stunned to see Sen. Cornyn suddenly emerge as the person willing to bring shame on himself by carrying the Robber Barons' water and force his pet project ahead of all others.

We sent an email to all our members last Friday, asking for steady pressure on Senators to make sure they knew public sentiment in case something like this happened.

Then Tuesday afternoon, we got word that Cornyn was trying to ram his bill onto the Senate floor. We went to all of our members in about a dozen states with Senators who often fight for American workers against foreign labor importation. We stirred up a flurry of phone calls.

We were pleased that by late Tuesday, many of those Senators had placed "holds" on Cornyn's bill. But those holds tend to have power to only slow the process down for awhile and can be overcome if Senate leadership decides to do so. The word we had late Wednesday was that the "holds" were breaking as Microsoft's lobbyists gathered more support.

You are calling the congressional leaders just stop the bill from moving to the floor and to concentrate instead on spending bills.


MORE ARGUING POINTS


Prof. Norm Matloff of the University of California has given this advice to tech professionals and engineers:

"Ask to speak to someone who handles immigration issues. Do NOT be long-winded. Keep it down to two or three sentences, something like 'I OPPOSE any increase to the H-1B program. The program is just used as cheap labor. Thank you.' If you are asked to elaborate ("Isn't it true that our schools aren't producing enough programmers and engineers?"), then do so, but otherwise keep it SHORT AND SIMPLE. And make sure they understand that you OPPOSE the H-1B increase (some of the staffers get it wrong)."

Dr. Matloff has done many papers showing that there is no shortage of programmers and engineers.

For much more information about this issue go to our page at:

www.numbersusa.com/interests/hightech.html


For me, the clincher in the debate is that the tech industry has resolutely fought any effort inside Congress to require that their solicitation of foreign workers be entirely public and transparent. If they truly need the workers, then they should not object to posting these jobs on a special internet website so that all Americans would first have the opportunity to apply for the jobs and then for that website to keep a record of each company that ends up hiring foreign workers, the number of workers for each company and a description of the
job duties and pay for each. This would expose a lot of the fraud that currently is in the program. But the tech companies want nothing of that kind of good-faith behavior.

Connect this vote with the personal story you can tell about the impact of foreign worker programs on you or somebody you know.

THANKS,

-- ROY

May I share your message verbatim?

Of course!

On November 20 I posted this on a different board, now I'm wondering if they knew something we are only now seeing:

"http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/nov/20it.htm?q=bp&file=.htm

And why would they be ramping up their bench strength, if they weren't
confident of getting more work? And where does their work tend to come
from? Hint: not internal to the country."

I have made the calls. We must stop Sen. Cornyn last minute Sneak pass on radical increases of foreign workers.

If the Senators staff don't answer it only means they are busy at the moment. Keep Calling.

It surprises me with some of these jobs. We have a physical therapy place in just about every little strip mall around here. I mean I don't have to go even a 1/2 mile in any direction. That doesn't include the fact that there's a few at every Chiropractors office, sports injury clinic, nursing home on down the line. In most of those places they have a physical therapist to tell the host of AIDS what to do. They don't want to pay for physical therapists. There's no adds for therapists......just aids. And then it's followed by "must speak Spanish". There's a physical therapist at my Dr's office and they get paid 10.00 and hour but I'm charged 75 or so for 10-15 min. of care. There was a huge push a few years ago for that field and most have gone to something else because there wasn't any work unless they settled for a few cents over minimum wage. Or else they've gone on their own to provide care for the elderly in their home. I just don't understand the "shortage". We have them....they just don't want to pay for them. Why import more? I'm sure there's areas of the country that may have a shortage but who wants to move across country for 10 an hour?

HW Bush, Schwarzenegger and Perry just got back from Felipe Calderon's Inauguration in Mexico. They are trying to make good on promises.

Dixie

Just like IT. Everybody and their dog was getting into the field in the 90's and piling up certs. Suddenly we started hearing 'shortage' and the H-1b quota zoomed up. Then the dot-com crash, and we were out, but they were still in.

Well I don't know if it is me or what. But they try to push stuff like this every single time Tony Blair is around. I guess because it keeps the Media busy with Tony.

Thank you Kate. I checked our emails, for some reason we do not yet have this from NumbersUSA. But we did get one from FAIR.
Okay, calling.