Lobbyists had a banner year in 2008. They were hard at work all year long, fabricating and publicizing their outrageous lies about US students, US schools, the US job market, and US STEM workers. Let's take a moment to examine the disinformation that the Corporate spinmeisters like to use and that Democrats - with the exception of Senator Durbin of IL - love to repeat.
This explicit discrimination, guided by US law, is responsible for an overabundance of technical talent in the US. Let's put the tech lobbyists' myths to rest by requiring employers to open their eyes, embrace the spirit of EEO, and consider hiring local talent for jobs in 2009.
In observance of the year's end, we should probably count them down -- the Worst of 2008.
Democratic Myth 5. H-1b employer visa program is used only when employers can't find qualified Americans. As a member of Bright Future Jobs, I thought this quote summed up how most Democrats embrace the lobbyists' lies...and how lobbyists have kept this secret from them
During this lobbying effort by brightfuturejobs.com, it has been an up hill battle to get supposedly well-informed Congressional aides to recognize that Americans can't compete for these job openings.
I talked to many Congressional aides, everyone of whom affirmed a touching faith in this myth. They sincerely believed that this provision existed and were outraged when I produced DOL documents revealing the absence of that provision
- Donna Conroy
The DOL's Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2006-2011 states:
...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 the foreign worker.
Democratic Myth 4. Decreasing the H-1b employer visa program will increase outsourcing.
As multinational outsourcing companies have become the leading consumers of the visa, they have used it to further their primary mission, which is to gain the expertise necessary to take on critical tasks performed by Western companies, and perform them offshore at a fraction of the cost. Thousands of H-1B visas every year are being won by individuals acting as outsourcing ambassadors. Highly skilled and easily meeting the objective standards for excellence that the law requires, the employees interact with U.S. companies like Morgan Stanley and Boeing, gathering an outsourcing mandate and lubricating the flow of tasks to an Indian back office.
To deliver the solutions from a remote environment, you need a certain number of people being with a customer, understanding his needs and collecting the requirements.
-B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian vendor
Democratic Myth 3. Minorities - especially blacks - are under represented in Science, Math and Computer Science so we need the fees from visa programs train them.
"After years of being labeled an "underrepresented minority" in computer science, blacks in the U.S. are on the brink of leaving that category with bachelor’s degrees in hand, according to the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of NSBE Magazine/Career Engineer.
The federal government’s national Center for Education Statistics show that black graduates received 12.4 percent of the baccalaureates in computer and information sciences awarded by U.S. colleges and universities in 2005–06. That’s nearly equal to the percentage of blacks in the U.S. population (12.8 percent).
For advocates of minority participation in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), reaching this milestone is cause for celebration."
more
Democratic Myth 2. There is a shortage of STEM talent in the US population.
Further details here
Democratic Myth 1. The public school system is so hopelessly mid-20th century that our children will ALWAYS be behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan.
Here's part of AP's coverage:
American schoolchildren do better than people think in math and science...
The findings contradict a persistent view in the United States that its children are lagging behind the rest of the developed world. An AP poll in June found that nearly two in five people believe American students do worse on math and science tests than those in most of the developed countries.
Not true, the authors of the report said.
Find the rest here
Labor contractors and some US employers also call their favorite inventory items -- visas -- h1, h1b, l1, and EAD. Stop the legal discrimination against US citizens and green card holders. Call Congress early next year to demand that they pass SB 1035