This past week, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced The H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007
The bill number is S.1035 and the Title:
A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to reduce fraud and abuse in certain visa programs for aliens working temporarily in the United States
Durbin in the past does not have a great record on insourcing (bringing in cheap labor to displace Americans, labor arbitrage, scroll to guest worker Visas), although he did vote for the Byrd amendment, which was a key indicator that he would support American workers. But this new legislation implies Durbin is finally getting it on how US immigration policy is being manipulated for the purposes of labor arbitrage and guest worker Visas are the vehicle of choice for the Corporate cheap labor lobby.
It appears that Durbin is going to stand tall with US professionals and labor and this is truly a godsend!
To give an overview of the problems with H-1B and L-1 Guest worker Visas I suggest watching this video from the Economic Policy Institute, Agenda for Shared Prosperity.
Yet the question remains, does this bill do enough? Yet an even larger question remains can we garner enough support to surmount the corporate lobbyists and the bought and paid for representatives who will vote however they dictate? Durbin's suprise bill is exceptional progress for workers because he has so much power and influence in the Senate. Yet we have current anti-labor behavior from Sen. Kennedy to where the AFL-CIO wrote a letter blasting Kennedy for giving Bill Gates a free court press in the form of a congressional hearing. Why is Kennedy, who claims to be for labor, inviting Bill Gates to his very own personal congressional hearing where he specifically demands more H-1B and L-1 guest worker Visas?
The legislation is currently in the Congressional Record (starts at bottom right column and then click next to read).
From Norm Matloff's e-newsletter
This is a great 1st step by the Senators and upon first analysis the biggest advantage of this bill is to redefine the Section 2(g):
This would redefine prevailing wage requirements. The key point is that it would require them to be paid at least the median for all workers in that occupation.
Impact:
In principle, this could cut down H-1B usage by huge amounts, maybe a 70-80% reduction in visas used. Here is why:
As I've often said, the dirty little secret is that H-1B allows Americans to hire young H-1Bs instead of older (40+), thus more expensive, Americans. Currently employers can hire a young H-1B at the lowest of the four defined experience levels, and thus can legally get away with hiring the younger H-1B instead of an older American. By setting the prevailing wage to be at least the median of all workers in the occupation, REGARDLESS OF EXPERIENCE LEVEL, the bill would basically cut the rug out from under the employers of H-1Bs. Simply put, the H-1Bs just wouldn't be so cheap anymore.
However, the phrasing is a bit vague. Clause (iii) in this section specifies that OES data be used, which would be great, but clause (ii) does not say this.
There are many weaknesses in the introduced bill, such as the wording on how to stop body shopping. Body shopping is the practice of loaning out cheap workers, on guest worker Visas, to other companies. This system usually hires on W2 via the body shop, which means they are "employees" of the body shop. Yet another problem is the clause wording which tries to cap companies filling their cubicles with cheap workers. The bill forbids more H-1B hires if the number of guest worker employees reaches 50%. Unfortunately that number is attached to the total number of employees, not the actual number of technical workers in the company. Yet overall, this is a great first step in actually obtaining much needed reforms.
The reality is other bills, notably the Defend the American Dream Act sponsored by Bill Pascrell (D-NJ 8th) and Rose DeLauro's (D-CT 3rd L-1 Nonimmigrant Reform Act were locked up, starved, stabbed and buried in committee (Judiciary).
Amazingly these bills were killed when the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the very labor arbitrage methods and abuses of H-1B and L-1 guest worker programs these bills addressed.
So, our congress does indeed know about the abuses of these two guest worker Visa categories and of course they do, we have GAO studies as well as many other reports describing the labor arbitrage aspects of these guest worker Visas.
What congress needs to know is that you know about these labor arbitraging methods and you support labor and demand this practice be stopped.
One of the reasons Corporate America has been able to obtain their cheap labor methods is lack of public awareness and outrage. Unfortunately it does take some study to dig through these methods. Labor arbitrage through insourcing doesn't stand out as a lie like no:
If enough people express outrage to Congress and demand action, we might have hope Congress does the right thing and votes for American careers, the US economy and working America.