Are We Organized Yet?
Are We Organized Yet?
Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 9:56 PM
H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe got a lot of feedback after the last
newsletter "In software industry, a passage to India". He learned that
there are plenty of people that want the job destruction stopped.
That's a positive because too many reporters only hear the industry
side of the argument. Good job to all the people that sent him letters!
Kirsner sent a response to the newsletter with the following statement:
> But I stand by my point that I haven't yet heard of anyone
> organizing/marching/protesting, or even better, anyone with
constructive
> ideas as to how to stop the job loss...
That's not the main point that most readers would get from that section
of his article so I think he is feigning innocence. The obvious
conclusion would be that technical workers aren't concerned with job
loss due to outsourcing or H-1B, and to do so would be xenophobic. Too
many reporters like him ignore the devastating effects that outsourcing
and H-1B are having on working Americans.
Kirsner's response raised a question that has to be seriously
considered. Is there organized opposition to H-1B? His observations
have a lot of merit because organized opposition to H-1B is sporadic to
nonexistent. It's taken a long time for workers to understand that
their jobs are going to be lost forever unless something is done.
Opposition to H-1B is mobilizing and getting stronger as workers begin
to understand how bad their situations are. It's unfortunate that
American white collar workers didn't do more to prevent H-1B from
becoming law in 1990 and they still barely grasp what outsourcing means
to their career. Workers have been fooled into thinking that unions and
trade organizations are not necessary. They are now discovering that
while they slumbered, the industry bigwigs were pulling the rug right
out from under their feet.
Listed below are some examples of what is being done to reverse the
damage. This newsletter will be sent to Kirsner to answer his question.
* The CWA (Communications Workers of America) are organizing against
H-1B. The AFL/CIO hasn't ratified their proposal yet but this could be
the most significant opposition group yet to form.
http://www.techsunite.org/
* The CFAW (Coalition for the Future American Worker) played a major
role in defeating Spencer Abraham in Michigan. They ran both newspaper
ads and billboards that explained to voters how he betrayed American
workers by sponsoring the 2000 increase. Unfortunately this group
disbanded after their mission was accomplished.
http://www.americanworker.org/
* T.O.R.A.W. (The Organization for the Rights of American Workers), has
staged large meetings and recently ran a full page newspaper ad. They
will send you a Word copy of the ad on request. TORAW is in the
planning stages for much more.
http://www.toraw.org/
* The AEA (American Engineering Association) has organized a few
protests at meetings held by Harris Miller of the ITAA. The purpose of
those meetings was to lobby politicians and government officials to
expand nonimmigrant visa programs. They have staged other types of
demonstrations in New York and Washington D.C.
http://www.aea.org/
* Pete Bennett of http://www.nomoreh1b.com organized several meetings
with local politicians in Silicon Valley. He also has a campaign called
"rolling blackouts".
* Glenn Jackson of the American Reformation Project
(www.americanreformation.org) and Richard Armstrong of
(http://www.hireamericancitizens.org) are attempting to form a serious
non-profit organization dedicated to fighting nonimmigrant visas. This
one is just starting but what this one to grow.
* Guy Santiglia has filed complaints with the DOJ, INS, and DOL against
Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley. He had a court hearing which didn't
go too well but he is filing an appeal to that. Gail Matthews filed a
similar complaint in U.S. District Court in Denver accusing Sun of
firing American workers and replacing them with cheap foreign labor.
* ZaZona.com has collected over 3,800 Petitions to Abolish H-1B to
Congress. We have a contact in Arlington that hand-delivers these
petitions to Congress. We are disappointed that there aren't far more
people signing these petitions but the activity has been picking up
recently.
http://www.zazona.com/H1BPetition/
Here are some letters that were sent to ZaZona.com
and to the Boston Globe.
My personal favorite is the last one by Boyd!
If you have comments be
sure to send them to the Boston Globe letters to the editor.
https://bostonglobe.com/newsroom/Editorial-Opinion/letterstoeditor.stm
I've just read Mr. Kirsner's article "In software industry, a passage
to India" and I was appalled to find yet another media piece that
seemed to imply that sending programming tasks offshore is not a bad
thing. Wrong!
While I don't know much about Massachusetts, I do know New York. We
also had a garment industry here at one time. Many people lost their
jobs when the industry headed for cheaper shores overseas. Those folks
can now be found sleeping in cardboard boxes all over the city!
The US IT industry is headed in the same direction. Worse yet, we are
not talking about low level subsistence salaries. We're talking about
middle income professionals, the folks with the funds to buy things
like houses, cars, and electronics at will. When these folks stop
buying, every industry in the country, and around the world for that
matter, will suffer.
The only thing driving the US economy was the technology sector and it
is a shame to see so many journalists bidding it a fond farewell rather
than revealing the truth about it's destruction.
Sincerely,
Vernon Gibson
I am still trying to get attention to this here in Boston.
Do you have other folks here who cantact you who I can work with to get
our cause going?
Thanks!
John Malloy
jdm@theworld.com
What you know Rob and Scott didn't yet, is that people like me ARE
(shall I
say) harassing our congresional representatives about all of this. I
wrote to
my guy, Patrick Kennedy. As you might imagine, still no meanigful
response
from him.
What is interesting Scott is that Kennedy is milking the H-1B (and any
other)
program to acquire as much funding as possible for his constituents. It
is
evident he is trying very hard to make points to get re-elected likely
without thinking about the reprocussions.
I forwwarded to Rob just such a tactic Kennedy used to get moneys out
of the
H-1B program and then spun it up to his constituents as money being
allocated
to train or re-train the residents of Rhode Island. YEAH, RIGHT! He
made it
into Rob's Hall of Shame.
Additionally, I was going to write a program to forward most of the
H-1B stuff
along to all of the members of congress but I thought that might be
contrued
as under-handed tactics and be fobbed off as an obnoxious tactic.
Seldom does
that have positive effects. As you might imagine, after 20 years of
computer
experience I have no problem doing something like this.
So Scott.
Just cuz some people don't know something is happening doesn't mean it
isn't.
Your article makes it sound like NOTHING is going on in this regard.
Oops!
Pete Sherwood
I'm enclosing several items of overseas outsourcing.
The first of from yesterday's Boston Globe. The author reassures
programmers that jobs will still be available involved with advertising
and selling software, if not writing it. Another piece of "good news"
is that Massachusetts' largest software producer, PTC, has only 200 of
its 1,100 product development employees in India; the "bad news,"
unknown to the author of this piece, is that lots of PTC's programmers in the U.S. are H-1Bs (see the Sanchez and DOL H-1B databases), at low
salaries.
As many of you know, I continue to believe that the overall percentage
of offshoring is small, and the Merrill Lynch data support me on that.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to see the author here questioning the
conventional wisdom that offshoring will only be limited to
"lower-level" programming. He cites Russia as a counterexample, and I
do agree that if there is any "sleeper" in this offshoring issue, it's
Russia. (By the way, I strongly object to the implication, made here
and elsewhere, that "low-level" programming is a mechanical task
similar
to assembly line work of the texile industry.)
After that, there is a New York Times article on the security aspects
of
offshoring, and then letters to the editor in the Boston Globe,
responding to an earlier article on offshoring.
Dr. Norman Matloff
Dear Mr. Kirsner;
After reading your recent article in regards to offshoring software and
engineering development to India I have one question to ask.The
question to ask after reading your article, whose job in this country
is safe when there is so much cheap available labor to be had for the
easy pickens in desperately poor third world countries? If
they(corporate America) can so easily export software jobs to third
world countries, what is to keep them from offshoring Engineering Jobs,
Accounting Jobs, Secretarial jobs or any other job that you can
possibly imagine that pays a decent living America wage? The question
then becomes one of pure economics. If all of the jobs that pay a
decent living American wage in this country are offshored to third
world countries where the labor is so much cheaper, then who in this
country is going to have the income to purchase the goods and services
that are made in third world countries? In the long run corporate
America is cutting their own nose off despite their face because of
their short-termed greedy business practices.
And oh another thing Mr.Kirsner, you said in your article that techies
were not marching in the streets or writing flame letters to their
elected representatives in Washington. I don't know about marching in
the streets,--- give that some time, but you are dead wrong about
techies not writing flame mails to their representatives in Congress.If
that is what you really think, well then Guess again! Don't want to
believe me? Do you need proof of this? Then just go to www.congress.org
and then click on the link on letters to congress.Then look under the
drop down filter list for jobs/labor and I guarantee you will find
plenty of flame mails from techies to their representatives to
Congress. I guess you didn't do your research too well for this article
that you wrote. I will include a couple here.There are many more just
like these at Congress.org. Go there and see for yourself. Don't take
my word for it. Proof is in the pudding as they say, well, then go to
Congress.org and get yourself some pudding "brudder"!
Brendan Boyd
The American worker Replacement Program - The L-1 "intra-company
transfer" work visa
Sen. John Kerry
January 20, 2003
Yes, your L-1 "intra-company transfer" visa is nothing more than an
"American worker replacement program".
We at Siemens ICN Lake Mary, FL were replaced foreigners, by Tata
Consulting Indians from India, in our country on congressional L-1
"intra-company transfer" work visas. I say "congressional visas"
because you people are the ones that created this "American worker
replacement program".
This "American worker replacement program is widespread. JP Morgan,
Tampa FL, Aetna in Conn. Siemens Automotive & Energy Atlanta, Siemens
Shared Services Orlando, FL, AIG Insurance, and on and on.
For 5 solid months I begged and pleaded with Senator Graham, Rep John
L. Mica and Senator Nelson. Only to see us Americans get laid off one
by one, so these Indians could come into our country and work, while
the Americans are sent to the unemployment line. Only to see
Representative John L. Mica get re-elected while he ignored our
requests. Why would he ignore us? Could it be because Siemens
contributes to his campaign?
Yes, we got laid off, Siemens contributed to Mica's campaign, Mica
ignored our desperate requests and Mica got re-elected. It is nothing
more than congressional and corporate greed. Greed for that corporate
campaign money.
The greed of our federal leaders has destroyed the IT industry in the
USA. Greed for that corporate campaign money. After 5 months of beggins
I firmly believe it will only going to get worse.
Now is this right for Americans?
1. Foreigners come into our country
2. with the sole intent of taking our jobs
3. management mandates we train them
4. their kids can go to our schools
5. while we are sent to the unemployment line
http://www.hannatroup.com:81/USA/tata/MyStory_20020918.html <---READ IT
http://www.hannatroup.com:81/USA/tata/The_Emails/ <----- READ one
Please read my rebuttal to those that accused me of being a disgruntled
Siemens worker.
http://emmons.hannatroup.com:81/~troup/tata/z_Why_I_Did_It_20020114.htm
Michael T. Emmons
818 Miami Springs Dr
Longwood, FL 32779
407-786-2595
usaworker@hannatroup.com
Longwood , FL
275,000 H-1B Visa's in 2002
Rep. David Price
January 17, 2003
Are you aware that 275,000 H-1B visa's were granted in 2002? Many
American Engineers are being replaced by foreigners on H-1B visa's.
While Americans are unemployed foreigners get the jobs. These jobs are
not available to Americans. Please see the data for yourself at:
http://h1b.info/lca.php.
It is your responsibility to stop this. Americans are being denied job
opportunities in their own country. I interviewed for one of these jobs
posted in this database, I was 100% qualified but did not get the job
because it went to an H-1B. Most of these jobs were never posted.
I urge you to start representing Americans who elect you.
Cary , NC
Help to Keep ZaZona.com Online
Donate to the Cause at
http://www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe or Unsubcribe send an email to
Back to archives