[ale] OT: H1B

[Bob Evans]

Good post. I personally lost my job to offshoring. 70 other programmers 
were in the same boat. Intersting though, in order to make the 
offshoring work, the company needed to have 15% of their staff here, and 
those folks were H1B visa holders. Once they began rolling out the 
offshoring, they found that they needed more people here, to work 
directly with the clients. So in the end, the local presence was more 
like 40%. Again, these were H1B visa holders.

Now, the fact that I trained the replacements says that there were 
qualified US programmers to do the work - I was one of them. So it was 
all about money. The H1B holders in that project were paid in the low 
30's. (This was posted, by law, in our break room. I'm not making up 
numbers) The US programmers that were replaced made in a range from 45K 
up to about 100K.

Since that first wave of 70 layoffs, another 50 people have been let go.

I'll be frank about it - I didn't know anything about H1B's before I was 
personally affected. Since then, I've had the time to study the subject 
in depth. If the economy was booming, and all the IT staff were working, 
I'd probably have said, "Sure, bring in the H1B holders to fill in the 
gaps" But in today's economy, I say no.

Ironic, but I applied for a job in England, more or less on a lark, back 
in the late 80's. I got a call at 4:30 in the afternoon, (9:30 or 10:30 
at night London time) from a very irate recruiter who said, in no 
uncertain terms, that that job was open to Engish citizens only. If this 
globalization thing is the wave of the future, how come it's one way 
only? I live in North Carolina, which used to have a thriving textile 
industry. A large part of that work went overseas a couple years back. 
So now I, as a consumer, should benefit from that move, by getting 
cheaper clothes, right? Heck, for what they pay the people making 
shirts, I should get 'em for 5 or 6 bucks a piece. Unfortunately, that 
isn't the case.

I'll  stop rambling now.


ahuitzot at mindspring.com wrote:

>I usually do not reply to this kind of krap, but I will make an exception this
>time.  I do think that the person who made the "hotel patel" comment was a bit
>extreme, and I would possibly take that as a racist comment. 
>
>But on the subject, I will state, and this is from my experience and factual
>evidence, I DID NOT LOOSE MY JOB DUE TO H1B VISAS.  I lost it because the CEO
>of the company decided to OUTSOURCE the company's software development to
>another country.  EVEN THE H1B'S where I worked LOST THEIR JOB.  THE H1B is
>not the problem.  Its the corprate mentality to get the job done as cheap as
>it can be, reguardless of the human factor that is killing the US economy and
>our jobs.  The H1B's may be beneficial in other areas, I am sure they are not
>just extending them because of the software industry (almost nonexistant one
>at that), I am sure there are other industries in the US in dire need of
>qualified workers, and since the colleges and technical schools have all been
>pushing IT, there very well could be a shortage of qualified people in other
>areas.  Of course I could also be talking completely out my ass on that one.
>
>
>So how many people on this list actually lost their job due to an H1B?  Can
>you prove thats why?
>
>Oh, and BTW, people with H1B's are people too, maybe if you got to know one
>and became friends with one (like I did at my previous job) you may actually
>decide to treat them like people and not outcasts.  Stop reacting from fear
>and ignorance (of loosing your job or whatever) and instead act with
>intelligence and kindness.
>
>Mike
>
>On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 08:01:13 -0500 Irv Mullins <irvm at ellijay.com> wrote:
>
>  
>


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