Mercury News | 09/26/2002 | H-1B issues going to court
For years U.S. engineers have grumbled that foreign engineers on work visas were getting their jobs. Now, for the first time, U.S. workers are filing formal complaints with the government and in court, charging that foreign guest workers are replacing them during the downturn.
The complaints contend that citizens were either laid off or not hired in favor of foreign workers on temporary H-1B visas. H-1B workers are supposed to fill only those jobs left vacant by a shortage of skilled U.S. workers.
While the previous griping was often dismissed as racial backlash, the new complaints spring from across the tech workforce — from men and women, white and non-white, native-born Americans and naturalized citizens. And labor lawyers researching the cases are finding something that stuns them: The H-1B rules give citizens almost no protection from being replaced by a foreign worker.
I don’t expect anything to happen in these court challenges, but next year would be a good time to prevail upon Congress to reform the H-1B program.
It’s too late now the bottom has fallen out of the tech industry. Even the H-1B’s don’t have jobs waiting for them, so it’s become a non-issue. But I knew a lot of people for were terrified of losing their programming jobs to a consultant from Pakistan or India. In fact, my former company brought in an entire DEPARTMENT of mainframe programmers from India, and I’m sure they made less than the market rate in L.A. at the time.
Too late, my ass. Israelis, Russians, and others from former Soviet states in Eastern Europe are pouring into the Silicon Valley. Most of the East Indians that came here in the 90s are still with us. They work long hours for low pay. Companies are desparate to cut costs and the locals are the first to get laid off.
The H1B issue and the California’s law exempting Software Engineers and Registered Nurses from overtime pay, written by none other than Silicon Valley’s own Byron Sher, are enough to make me start my own ‘blog.