Post a message to Obama and Biden to let them know that you are in on the secret – and that you demand that they rebuild a strong middle class
They got it on the downlow: H-1b law doesn’t require employers to seek local talent or even certify that they considered the US workforce before recruiting abroad. 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 now, and has been for 18 years, legal for employers to bypass the US workforce and tether foreign workers to their companies.Obama is ready to expand the H-1B employer 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 foreign workers. And it will prevent outsourcing or labor contractors from displacing Americans with their tethered workers. Technical corporations and labor contractors operating in the US use lobbyists to spin myths about American incompetence by producing 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 practice deception against the American public began twenty years ago. They are responsible for putting thousands upon thousands of Americans out of work, especially during the last seven to eight years. This steady buildup of US unemployed and underemployed tech workers now 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 exacerbates the severity of the meltdown in the home mortgage market.
To make matters worse, the H-1B law prevents government oversight of the companies who use this program. Durbin’s bill, SB 1035, will require that the DOL have independent oversight. Employers are able to effortlessly cheat Americans and legal residents from the promise of the American Dream: opportunity and upward mobility. Congress passed this law 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, e.g. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Apple, Amazon, and Google have clamored to increase the numbers of visas available. They have sounded the same onerous tone year after year, while they continue to refuse to consider Americans for the jobs that become available. Microsoft's Bill Gates has been the most prominent ringleader of this egregious disinformation campaign against American professionals. He has gone to Congress at least twice 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 ship out to the US, producing additional billions in profits each year. At their discretion, all of 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, no means to pay their bills or to keep a roof over their heads. The C.E.O.'s have decided to destroy the American middle class, and they are making significant progress in their efforts to ignore talented, successful, and experienced Americans, while using the entry level, tethered workers brought in by labor contractors.
Where is our representation in Congress during this time? They should be rushing to vote SB 1035 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 foreign workers. The job market in the tech sector has grown increasingly dismal for US citizens in recent years 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 hundreds of thousands or millions of hard working, technically qualified US citizens. I am hoping that the US Congress will take up the issue and take a stand against unchecked corporate greed before the middle class is destroyed completely. This will directly benefit many US workers besides tech professionals. 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 to win it for the benefit of all Americans. We are being bullied and cheated by greedy and power-hungry C.E.O.'s who are bent on destroying American professionals. They are flush with victory, since they have succeeded in destroying 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 technologists aside and provide 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 change. Demand SB 1035. We deserve to compete for job openings in our own country. It’s the American way, after all.