Limiting H-1B visas: Patriotic or treasonous to America's high-tech worker community?

[yllus]

H-1B: Patriotic or treasonous?

For the high-tech community, what Bill Gates said about hiring foreign nationals under the H-1B visa program is a white-hot issue. ?The whole idea behind the H-1B thing is, ?Don?t let too many smart people come into the country,? ? Gates said during a panel discussion at the Library of Congress two weeks ago, opining that if he had his way he would eliminate the quota for H-1B visas, currently set at 65,000. The demand for a more open H-1B policy -- and the debate over whether the United States has enough ?smart people? of its own -- goes to the heart of the conflict raging between high-tech employees and employers.

Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, disagrees with Gates. Matloff said the issue comes down to hiring ?cheap labor.?

Although companies are required by law to hire foreign nationals on a pay scale equivalent to the pay scale of American workers, they are also permitted to hire by generic category rather than recognizing a particular skill set.

?You get an expert for the cost of a regular programmer,? Matloff said.

Some foreign nationals claim that their desire to stay in the United States has lead to exploitation. One contract worker who has since left the country told InfoWorld that he regards his employment here as ?slave labor.?

?The companies try to lure you into accepting a green-card sponsorship, which means you cannot move for five years,? the contract worker said. Others claim that what employers call loyalty of foreign workers really amounts to uncompensated servitude in order to keep their visa status.

But there is another side as well. What Gates said about the lack of skilled American software engineers was echoed in talks with high-tech employers.

Randy Williams, an executive at TechSource, a computer graphics company, said, ?The quality of the college graduate has simply plummeted in the last 10 years or so, computer engineering fields specifically.?

TechSource spent six months interviewing 150 candidates before turning to an H-1B solution.

I thought this would be interesting to us young people starting in computer-related fields as well as you older folks who have a say in the hiring practices at your company. To summarize we have three sides to this debate:

Patriotic: Raise the H-1B visa limit, not enough skilled tech workers are currently available in the U.S. and that is starving local industry. What better way to strengthen America than to import smarts?

Treasonous: H-1B workers are used and abused by their companies as low-budget alternative employees, and are even screwed out of looking for alternate employment by way of the visa stipulation that they cannot relocate for a period of 5 years.

Any input? This is deliberately posting in OT rather than P&N where it'd turn into a stupid political flamefest.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Ars Technica had an editorial on this Ars Link pointing out the abuse and indentured servitude aspects, as well as that the claimed "shortage" of American workers was never conifrmed by independent study.

It also links to a CNet editorial Norm Matloff, CS prof which brings up that America's slipping in student programming competitions is partly because of (a) a sevenfold increase in competitor teams and (b) many teams devote all time outside of class to preparing for the competition.

 

[yllus]

As a fresh grad from a Canadian university in a computer science program, I can't say that I'm impressed by more than 50% of my fellow grad's skills. That's probably typical of any industry today though.

It sounds to me like they should be revising the H-1B visa instead of upping the cap. I'd love to apply under it myself one day in the near future.

 

[BCYL]

Originally posted by: yllus
As a fresh grad from a Canadian university in a computer science program, I can't say that I'm impressed by more than 50% of my fellow grad's skills. That's probably typical of any industry today though.

It sounds to me like they should be revising the H-1B visa instead of upping the cap. I'd love to apply under it myself one day in the near future.

If you're Canadian, you don't need to get a H-1B... Canadian and Mexican can apply for a TN visa if you are a professional, which has no yearly limit on the number that gets handed out by US immigration...

 

[ahurtt]

I agree with the reasoning that it is because American citizen workers cannot be exploited by corporations like foreign workers can. I have worked with plenty of H1B visa holders and the fact is that by and large they have been inexperienced and turn out shoddy work and lack creative problem solving skills and ingenuity and cannot communicate well but are willing to work as many hours as it takes to get the job done by whatever means necessary for not very much money. There have been a very few exceptions. The competent few get their work done in a timely fashion and follow industry best practices and have good communication skills. These are few and far between as I have seen. You get what you pay for I guess.

 

[Jassi]

Originally posted by: BCYL

Originally posted by: yllus
As a fresh grad from a Canadian university in a computer science program, I can't say that I'm impressed by more than 50% of my fellow grad's skills. That's probably typical of any industry today though.

It sounds to me like they should be revising the H-1B visa instead of upping the cap. I'd love to apply under it myself one day in the near future.

If you're Canadian, you don't need to get a H-1B... Canadian and Mexican can apply for a TN visa if you are a professional, which has no yearly limit on the number that gets handed out by US immigration...

Actually, I think you need to shift from a TN to a H1 visa in order to qualify for a green card (to start the precedure of obtaining one that is).

 

[91TTZ]

I know they're supposed to pay them an "equivalent" wage, but in reality that doesn't happen.

There's always a salary range for a particular job. One job may pay $10-$20 an hour for a PC tech, depending on experience. Let's say that most people fall around the $15 an hour mark. The company obviously wants to pay the least amount possible. It's hard to find a qualified worker to work for the low end of the scale, but someone from India would gladly take that. So the company hires H1B workers for the job, and pays them $10/hr. Technically this isn't illegal since it's still within the regular range, but it's definitely at the low end of the range. In the end, you still pay less for a H1B worker.

 

[Amplifier]

It's the same argument against any immigration...

Person 1> Whaaah those immigrates who are more skilled than me took my job!
Person 2> They took err job?
Person 1> Day took ma jeerb!
Person 3> Day took mer jorb doo.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
... So the company hires H1B workers for the job, and pays them $10/hr. Technically this isn't illegal since it's still within the regular range, but it's definitely at the low end of the range. In the end, you still pay less for a H1B worker.

And they can get away with not giving raises (or giving very small raises) to the H1-B worker since he can't change jobs.

 

[dandruff]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
... So the company hires H1B workers for the job, and pays them $10/hr. Technically this isn't illegal since it's still within the regular range, but it's definitely at the low end of the range. In the end, you still pay less for a H1B worker.

And they can get away with not giving raises (or giving very small raises) to the H1-B worker since he can't change jobs.

might be true in most cases ... not true in mine ... i make more (2.5 times) more than prevailing wages in my job field ... and i am not even a licensed Architect ... and I am on H1-B ... and i have never looked for a job ... point is if you have skills there will be a demand for you ... /boast

 

[smithdj]

IF you are coming from another country and you really want to work here in the US for "average" pay, what the hell is wrong with that? Someone can have my job so I can move to another country.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Amplifier
It's the same argument against any immigration...

Person 1> Whaaah those immigrates who are more skilled than me took my job!
Person 2> They took err job?
Person 1> Day took ma jeerb!
Person 3> Day took mer jorb doo.

You're ignoring the indentured servant aspect.

I have nothing against immigration of skilled workers, where those workers have the freedom to compete for jobs and to receive prevailing wages. That isn't what most companies want, since they know if they didn't have a hold on the worker they could not underpay and/or overwork them.