The Tech Lobby Has Kept You in the Dark

Journal BFJ tech ed's Journal: The Tech Lobby Has Kept You in the Dark 2

Journal by BFJ tech ed on Saturday January 31, 2009 @06:07PM

Post a message to Obama and Biden to let them know that you are in on the secret - and that you demand that they support the reconstruction of a strong middle class.

Here's the skinny: the law doesn't require employers to seek local talent or even to certify that they have considered the US workforce before recruiting from overseas. In a letter dated April 1, 2008 Senators Durbin and Grassley, who had introduced bipartisan legislation last year to prevent H-1B and L-1 Visa abuses, wrote to the top 25 recipients of H-1B visas in 2007,

"Most companies can explicitly discriminate against American workers by recruiting and hiring only H-1B visa holders. As the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has said:
"H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of a foreign worker."

This revolting and self-destructive conduct on the part of our business and government leaders should be a crime. Instead, it is legal for employers to bypass the US workforce and tether workers from overseas to their employers. It hasn't changed in 19 years.

Obama said during his campaign that he was ready to expand the H-1B employer visa program. But no nation can be strong when employers can legally ignore local talent.
Ask President Obama to make headway on reclaiming the American Dream of Equal Employment Opportunity by supporting Durbin's H-1B & L-1 reform legislation (SB 1035). It will require that employers seek local talent for their US job openings before tethering workers from overseas to the jobs. It will prevent labor contractors from displacing Americans with their tethered workers.

Why the Performance Mythology Works

Technical corporations and labor contractors operating in the US use lobbyists to spin myths about American tech professionals. They produce an endless supply of studies that show a "skills shortage," prompting them to also declare a "visa shortage." These fabricated results are accompanied by press releases that inundate the news media with inaccurate, misleading information.

This steady stream of propaganda successfully traps the American public into believing that Americans can't cut it in science and technology. The tech lobbyists prefer to veil their activities in secrecy for obvious reasons.

The campaign by lobbyists to cover their agenda by deliberate deception began twenty years ago. They are responsible for putting hundreds of thousands or millions of American technology workers and other STEM professionals out of work, especially during the last seven to eight years. This steady buildup of US unemployed and underemployed tech workers corresponds to the time during which the country is undergoing the worst economic crisis in recent history; the worst since the Great Depression, according to many economists. Former tech workers usually had homes and mortgages before being laid off, but were unable to keep up the payments. This continues to exacerbate the severity of the meltdown in the home mortgage market. That initial meltdown in the US housing market was the trigger that precipitated the current apocalyptic freefall in the financial sector at home and worldwide. The economy in the US has become the most important issue globally. The reason is simple: all economies in the world depend heavily on robust growth in the US economy. There is no economic decoupling, only wishful thinking on the part of the globalists and rest of the global plutocracy. They masterminded the financial and economic course of action that has perpetrated this cataclysm on the rest of us.

To make matters worse, the laws governing employer visas prevent government oversight of the companies who use this program. Durbin's bill, SB 1035, will require that the DOL have independent oversight. As it is, US employers are able to effortlessly cheat Americans and green card holders out of the American Dream: opportunity and upward mobility. Congress passed these laws with no regard for the well being of US citizens.

This astounding lack of corporate governance needs to be addressed.

Tech Lobbyists' Secret Revealed

Lobbyists for tech companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Apple, Amazon, and Google have clamored incessantly to increase the numbers of visas that are available each year. They have sounded the same onerous tone, as they continue to refuse to consider Americans for the jobs that become available. Microsoft's former C.E.O. Bill Gates was the most prominent ringleader of this egregious disinformation campaign against American professionals. He went to Congress in the past to falsely claim that there were no US workers available to fill his open positions at Microsoft.

Labor contractors, e.g. Tata, Wipro, TCS, HCL, CTS, and Infosys, have increased their revenues in this business sector in direct proportion to the number of jobs offshored and the numbers of tethered workers they exploit, producing additional billions in profits each year. At their discretion, these unbridled corporate behemoths organize any number of think tanks that are populated with so-called industry experts and other lobbyists. Their sole purpose is to crank out bogus numbers to substantiate their outrageous claims of "skills shortages" and "visa shortages" and to hound members of government including Congress.

In comparison, the individual US tech workers whose lives they destroy en masse have, increasingly, accepted much lower rates of pay, accepted part time work with no benefits, or simply adapted to being unemployed. They have been all too frequently left without the means to pay their bills or to keep a roof over their heads. The American C.E.O.'s and other members of the plutocracy have decided to destroy the American middle class, and they have made significant progress in their efforts. They deliberately ignore talented, successful, and experienced American STEM workers. Instead, they use the tethered workers brought in by labor contractors.

Where is our representation in Congress during this time? They should be rushing to reintroduce SB 1035, and to vote it into law. One of the greatest benefits of SB 1035, authored by Dick Durbin (D) IL and Chuck Grassley (R) IA, is that it puts a stop to the use of labor contractors. When the bill passes, the labor contractors will have an immediate need to hire US workers and to do without their tethered labor force.

The job market in the tech sector has grown increasingly dismal for US citizens as a result of this secret campaign against American workers. It has had a severe impact on far too many careers, and has destroyed the financial well being of far too many thousands of hard working, technically qualified US citizens and green card holders. I am hoping that the US Congress will take up the issue and take a stand against destructive, unchecked corporate greed before the middle class has been obliterated completely.
Enacting SB 1035 will directly benefit many US professionals besides technology workers. There are countless other members of the US work force whose future opportunities will also be assured.

Congress needs to rise to the occasion - to fight today's most urgent battle and win it for the benefit of all Americans. We are being bullied and cheated by greedy, power-hungry C.E.O.'s who are bent on destroying American professionals. They are eager to duplicate their success, having already destroyed the American industrial workers in previous decades. It is drastically important that SB 1035 be passed into law immediately.

American law should not be used to push STEM workers aside and provide the obscenely wealthy in the US with a tethered company workforce. How can anyone justify the current effort to destroy the lives and the livelihoods of untold numbers of Americans? Could it be true that the American Dream is only meant for those individuals who are ready and willing to attack and destroy the American middle class?

Send a message to President Obama to make sure that he is on our side in this issue, and is not considering making the mistake of supporting the tech giants and labor contractors who oppress us and deprive us of Equal Opportunity. Demand that the new administration stop the destruction of the middle class Don't hesitate to voice your opinion directly to Obama on this matter. We elected Obama to implement change. We expect change, not more of the same betrayals from our political leaders. Demand the reconstruction of a strong middle class. Demand SB 1035. We deserve to be considered for job openings in our own country. It's the American way, after all.

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