THE DAMAGE OF THE H1B AND L1B VISAS OR HOW TO PUT THE MIDDLE CLASS BACK TO WORK
An H1B Visa is non immigrant visa in the US that allows employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. Typical H1B occupations include ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS, PROGRAMMERS, ACCOUNTANTS, DOCTORS, BUSINESS MANAGERS AND COLLEGE PROFESSORS. There are currently hundreds of thousands of H1B employees who have replaced American workers, many of whom were forced to train their replacements in order to receive their earned severance package. Many of these Americans are now hard pressed to become employed again and stay employed without losing yet another job to an H1B Visa immigrant. It is said Americans do not want these jobs or cannot be found but the truth is that the Immigrants will work for less than the Americans and are contracted for 6 years. During this time some are trying to get their green card to continue on in America after their visa is up.
An L-1 Visa is generally for 3 years and is available to employees of an international company with offices in both a home country and the US. It allows foreign workers to relocate to the company’s US offices for at least 1 year prior to being granted L-1 status. There is no quota system and is quite devastating to our economy and the middle class white collar worker. The spouses are allowed to work without restriction in the US.
Critics of the visa programs such as the Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman, referred to the program as a corporate subsidy because they are supposed to be paid the prevailing wages with safeguards in place. But the data from the US government OES office shows that these H1B wages are below the median for the same occupation as compared to a US worker. So this is how the corporations are being subsidized by the government. Or as Professor Norman Matloff, UC-Davis sums it up “its about cheap labor and there is no shortage of qualified American citizens to fill American computer related jobs”. He further stated that the data offered as evidence by American corporations “needing” H1B and L-1 visas to address labor shortages, was erroneous.
The US General Accounting Office has also reported that the controls on the H1B visa program lacked effectiveness in 2000.
Almost any job in the US that requires one sit at a desk can be taken by an H1B visa worker. The original intent was to bring someone who had a very unique skill that could not be filled by most other people. But that intent has been lost and today the middle class is losing jobs at an alarming rate while also losing their buying power in the American economy. Wages have been driven down below 50% of what they were 5-8 years ago. The same IT job today is paying what it paid in 1988. The H1B workers cannot afford to replace the American buyers in the economy.
Our proposal is to end the H1B L-1 Visa Program and re-employ Americans who have the experience, skill and wisdom to do the jobs that have been taken from them.
HERE ARE SOME WEBSITES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ON THE SUBJECT.
WWW.JOBDESTRUCTION.COM/SHAMEH1B/JOBDESTRUCTIONNEWS.HTM
Professor Norman Matloff's H1B and Offshoring Webpage:
Comments (1)
The statement "The H1B workers cannot afford to replace the American buyers in the economy" should better be worded as "H1B and L-1 workers cannot afford to replace the American buyers in the economy with their reduced wages nor should they be expected to”.
Additionally the combined net loss of Federal and State income tax revenue due to the loss of American wages because this off shoring and or domestic replacement of American workers by H1B/L-1 visa holders affects the economic health of all of us. Note the struggle most state governments are going through; reduced services and lay offs. This is do to the lack of tax revenue and most of taxes come from personal income and sales. This filters down to the local municipal areas where they have to lay off teachers and cut back services. Each time someone is replaced a potential customer is lost. The chain flows though out the market place. Merchants keep hoping each season for a turn around in sales and to no avail. There are no enough of us working or earning what we use to and then there is inflation. We have not seen our wages keep up with inflation for years. Current jobs are often offering wages equal to what I made in 1988. Yet the gas and the housing prices are certainly NOT the same! At the same time the Media attempts to make the public jealous of Auto Workers for making $80,000 a year with health care. Think it through - $80,000 still would not qualify a person for the average house in Tempe AZ where I live. Rather than be jealous, Mr. Cabelas Worker who pointed that out to me, you should be wondering why you are working part time and have no health care and why you are lead to resent the auto workers who really do not have that much compared to the Fat Cats that have brought this mess upon us. If engineers (and financial type jobs are being off shored) who are now forced to worked at $10 per hour jobs, that definitely will reduce the amount of taxes due. And Kentucky continues to lay off it native born teachers so that it can import H1B teachers from the Philippines at less money. Who is going to pay the taxes required to provide the services necessary to keep this Republic in any kind of healthy shape?
The claim is that 5 to 6 jobs are created for each off shored or replaced (by H1B/L-1). Most of these jobs are mythical and if any jobs are to be found are low paying service jobs. I question the supposed “Green Jobs” the administration is promising: most will be hammering panels on roofs or digging ditches. The engineering jobs formerly held by Americans will continue be held by the under 35 year old off shore workers or temporarily imported workers indentured to body shops (temporary agencies) or major corporations.
IBM recently applied for a patent for an “Off Shoring System Package”. They did with draw it a few days later. But I found it amazing that while the government was trying to create jobs for us, IBM was trying to show others how to systematically off shore them.
This is not an anti immigrate issue. This is about age discrimination and job displacement of perfectly capable and talented workers. Exceptional individuals can use the O-1 visa. The H1B and L-1 visas are being massively abused by corporation with Congress turning a blind eye.
Ulysses