10 U.S. senators seek investigation into H-1B-driven layoffs (1 Viewer)

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...k-investigation-into-h-1b-driven-layoffs.html

Ten U.S. senators, representing the political spectrum, are seeking a federal investigation into displacement of IT workers by H-1B-using contractors.

They are asking the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department to investigate the use of the H-1B program "to replace large numbers of American workers" at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other employers.
The other signers are Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), a longtime ally of Grassley on H-1B issues; Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Vitter (R-La.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

"These programs have been widely abused to harm American workers," Hira said. "The Obama administration and prior administrations have made no effort to correct the injustices that the programs have inflicted on hundreds of thousands of American workers."

The political diversity of the letters' signers shows that this is "neither a partisan nor ideological issue," Hira said.

The senators should first look into the mirror because they are pressuring companies to cut costs to counterbalance taxes. (And state governments often don't help.) The entire process of "corporate inversion" is an attempt to evade higher tax rates.

For those not familiar with the term, "corporate inversion" is the result of a larger company, usually USA resident, that lets itself be bought by a foreign company in a country with more favorable tax rates. Some of the USA "big oil" companies did that many years ago. Some of the companies involved in telecommunications have done that. I know about those because I have stock in AT&T from my mother's estate. Some of the AT&T child corporations merged with British and French companies, which means that without me doing anything at all, suddenly I had stock in the "foreign interest" category. (It appears on USA Tax form 1040 Schedule B.)

This practice of replacing U.S. workers with foreign workers constitutes national origin discrimination, say its critics.
http://www.computerworld.com/articl...s-it-workers-are-alleging-discrimination.html

Separately, there are ongoing court cases alleging discrimination against two of the largest India-based IT services firms, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. The federal judges in each of cases have given a green light for the plaintiffs to proceed after rejecting dismissal efforts.

The IEEE-USA is trying to encourage the U.S. Department of Justice to take action and launch an independent investigation.

Tata seems to be associated with news stories related to credit card security issues.
The H1-B program gives large companies a tax subsidy to import foreign workers to come to the US and replace existing technology workers. In most cases, it isn't always cheaper labor, but the Tax subsidy makes the difference.

H1-B has a huge lobby group. The current President created new Technology Czar positions. They operate without any transparency. One of the new Technology Czar built his company on H1-B associated activities. The fact this Technology Czar group never has so much as a news release is very disturbing.

As pointed out in the above post, the erected officials of both parties are pushing business overseas. The H1-B is filling in by bringing boots on the ground from foreigners who replace citizens while Congress officially claims there is a shortage of US citizens to fill the jobs.

It is interesting to see workers and groups such as the IEEE use the courts to fight against discrimination.