What is a guest worker Visa and how is that different from immigration?
Right now we are inundated with claims that we need more guest workers in high tech. Specifically Intel is claiming:
"We can't hire people," said Jenifer Verdery, director of work force policy at Intel.
Really? Then why is it Intel just fired 10,500 workers and 1,000 managers?
Why is it that the total number of IT jobs is still 17.4% down and Design jobs are still 8.7% down from their 2001. Did
645,000 tech professionals just magically disappear? Were they sucked up to space by extraterrestrials and that is the reason the US needs more tech workers?
So, back to my original question, what is a guest worker Visa? Is is a temporary Visa for a foreign national to work in another country and the Visa is controlled by or contingent upon the employer.
Let's look back at a very old employment vehicle called indentured servitude.
Indentured Servitude is a system where the employer brings a foreign national to another country, where that foreign national must work for a period of time to pay back the costs of passage into the new country. It's often a form of Unfree labor.
So, let's see, if someone on an H-1B Visa quits they must pay back that company all of their relocation costs and most certainly do not get a trip back to their home country. If they are on a L-1 guest worker Visa, there is no law protecting them. If an L-1 is fired, they are stuck here with no legal work status or money to return home. Technically an employer who fires a H-1B must pay for a trip home, but there are many abuses of this and they also can be stuck. The temporary worker's status becomes illegal in just 10 days.
They are also paid an average of $18,000 less than the American worker who was just displaced.