Tell your US Senator VOTE NO on Senate bill 2839-Global Competitiveness Act of 2008

Hi, I am back to blogging again after an extremely enjoyable Orlando, Fla. family vacation the last 10 days. I love Florida!

While on vacation, I saw CNN Lou Dobbs talking about a new proposed bill, Senate bill 2839 "Global Competitiveness Act of 2008", that Senator John Cornyn wants to pass. It is being co-sponsored by Lieberman, Gregg, and Hagel. This bill essentially will increase the number of H-1B Visas (i.e. Foreign workers) available for Corporations.

Whaaaaht? That was my reaction to this while watching Lou Dobbs. So later that night I researched it and found out that Dobbs was right, idiots Cornyn, Lieberman, Gregg, and Hagel seem to think we need to flood our country with more cheap foreign labor EVEN THOUGH there are MILLIONS of SKILLED AMERICAN WORKERS READY to fill these jobs right now, here in America.
I will give you one personal example of this. My wife's Uncle, an American citizen (has been for 30yrs) is a highly skilled, college educated, Engineer. He has worked at Nuclear Power Plants as an Engineer as well as other high-tech Engineering positions right here in America. He was laid off a few years ago and even though he has an extensive high-tech resume, he could not find work in his field even though he repeatedly applied to many different employers. He ended up taking a low paying, low-tech job at an Airlines in the baggage department just to pay his bills.
Finally after over a year he was able to find another Engineering job more suitable for his high-tech qualifications.
So someone please explain to me, why do we need more foreign workers when my wife's Uncle can't even find work??
The answer is simple: Corporations want foreign workers in order to pay them less money. That's right, its all about the money. Follow the money people.
And then we have low-wage, outsourcing champions like Microsoft's Bill Gates who, if he had his way testified before Congress that he would not have ANY cap on Foreign workers. That's right, NO CAP. Gates would love to flood the USA with cheap labored foreign workers so his labor cost go down, thereby putting more $$$ in his pocket. He is disgraceful.
Shame on Cornyn, Lieberman, Gregg, Hagel, and Gates.

There is no real shortage of American information technology workers. It’s just that the large high-tech international companies want to turn these hard earned information technology skills into as cheap a labor commodity as possible at the American workers’ expense. On March 12th Bill Gates appeared before Congress calling for an increase in H-1B visas. Two days later, without soliciting comments from any representatives of American IT workers, Congress introduced two bills that would double or triple the H-1B base cap. Why weren’t the representatives of American IT workers allowed to be heard? Could the average of $25 million dollars a year that members of congress receive in bribes (I mean campaign contributions) from the Computer Equipment and Services Industry, have something to do with this? Here’s some interesting campaign contribution statistics compiled by the Center for Responsible Politics at www.opensecrets.org that shows why congress may be so eager to support the requests of the Computer Equipment and Services Industry over the American IT workers.

The proposed legislation will displace even more American IT workers and outsource their good paying, high-technology jobs to foreign off-shore companies. We must learn from our mistakes. The current H-1B visa program has not served the best interests of American workers nor American companies. The current program has actually helped foreign competitors, with branch offices in the USA, hire almost no Americans and shift as many American jobs overseas as possible. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?


The following statistics can be found in the Center for Immigration Studies April 2007 report entitled, "Wages and Skill Levels for H-1B Computer Workers, 2005"

Very few H-1B workers are "highly-skilled." Employers who used the Department of Labor’s skill-based prevailing wage system classified most workers (56 percent) as being at the lowest skill level (Level I) as did most State Employment Security Agency (SESA) wage determinations (57 percent). This suggests that most H-1B computer workers are low-skilled workers who make no special contribution to the American economy, or that employers are deliberately understating workers’ skills in order to justify paying them lower salaries.

According to the applications filed in 2005, it appears that employers may be significantly understating what U.S. computer workers are earning in order to justify paying low wages to H-1B guestworkers in those occupations. In FY 2005, H-1B employer prevailing wage claims averaged $16,000 below the median wage for U.S. computer workers in the same location and occupation.

90 percent of H-1B employer prevailing wage claims for programming occupations were below the median U.S. wage for the same occupation and location, with 62 percent of the wage claims in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages.

While higher than the prevailing wage claims, the actual wages reported for H-1B workers were significantly less than those of their American counterparts. Wages for H-1B workers averaged $12,000 below the median wage for U.S. workers in the same occupation and location.

The reported wages for 84 percent of H-1B workers were below the median U.S. wage; 51 percent were in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages.

Many employers make prevailing wage claims using wage sources that are not valid under the law. The Department of Labor routinely approves prevailing wage claims based on these invalid sources.

It is time the American Workers stand up for their rights and YELL LOUDLY to the Senate, STAND UP FOR OUR RIGHTS FIRST, VOTE NO ON SENATE BILL 2839!!

MEMO TO CONGRESS: There are MORE than enough High-Tech American workers to fill ALL the positions here in the USA.

Corporations need to pony up and pay American workers what they are worth instead of lobbying Congress to bring in cheap foreign workers.

Again, This is a HORRIBLE bill. America does not need more Foreign workers. We have more than enough skilled American workers trying to get jobs now, but unable to because corporations hire foreign workers at half the salary to do the same job. Congress should be trying to LIMIT the number of foreign workers not increase it. Americans need jobs first. This bill undercuts American wages and makes it even more difficult for American degreed workers to get good jobs.

Congress, vote NO on Senate bill 2839!

Jimbo