Orlando TV Part 2

Date: Monday, February 17, 2003 6:29 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Be sure to watch the video. Watching Harris Miller squirm is worth
every minute.

This video if the first part of a 3 part series.

http://www.local6.com/orlpn/news/stories/news-198433420030217-160237.html

(if that link doesn't work just go to http://www.local6.com)

Special: Where Did The Jobs Go?
Posted: 3:31 p.m. EST February 17, 2003
Updated: 7:43 p.m. EST February 17, 2003

Thousands of Americans in the information technology industry have
reportedly been replaced by cheap foreign labor since a cap was raised
on an immigration program, according to an exclusive Problem Solvers
report.

Special: Where Did The Jobs Go?

Local 6 News reported that two types of visas, the H1-B and L-1 visa
programs, allow foreigners to come to the United States for employment
and work in specialized fields like computer programming and software
engineering.

H1-B visas allow U.S. companies, including federal contractors, to hire
skilled foreign workers on a temporary basis to supply workers where
they cannot find qualified Americans.

However, the technology workers, who are mostly from India, are not
filling empty jobs but actually replacing qualified Americans,
according to the report.

"H1-B's are allowed to come over and work but they're not supposed to
displace Americans," Central Florida Siemens' worker Mike Emmons said.

Emmons said he was forced to train his foreign replacement before being
laid off.

"These people are putting Americans out of work," Emmons said. "They
brought the employees into a room and told them what was going happen
and that they were going to train them and they held a carrot out and
said if you don't stay and train them you won't get your severance.

Another Siemens worker, James Granberry, said that he was force to
train his foreign replacement.

"So, they up front told you that you're not just being laid off, you're
being replaced by other labor?" Problem Solver Steven Cooper asked
Granberry.

"Yes, I was given a list objectives and one of my objectives was to
train my replacement," Granberry said.

Local 6 News reported that workers blame an increase in the cap of H1-B
visas.

Until the year 2000, the number of H1-B visas granted per year was
limited to 65,000. However, Congress voted to raise the cap to 195,000.

Local 6 News reported that Congress raised the cap in 2001 after strong
lobbying in part by the Information Technology Association of America.

ITAA conducted a survey of the job market and concluded there was a
huge shortage of qualified I.T. workers.

The survey was used to convince Congress to raise the cap, which
resulted in a wave of foreign worker immigration, Local 6 News
reported.

"I believe its fraud from the ITAA," Emmons said. "Every night I go to
bed and think about what our Congress has done to Americans. I go to
bed and I just lay there and think, my God, they turned on us like
this."

Cooper asked ITAA spokeman Harris Miller, "We've heard story after
story of people who say that these people (foreigners) are not coming
to fill new jobs or vacancies but they're coming to replace U.S.
workers.

"I can't respond to every individual situation," Miller said. "I get
those e-mails, too, from individuals. I'm sure they're frustrated."

Local 6 News reported that several large companies like Motorola,
Lucent, General Electric and Bank of America laid off thousands of
workers in 2001 while at the same time hired hundreds of H1-B workers
from overseas.

"It all goes back to corporate citizenship, which doesn't exist today,"
Granberry said.

Siemens, in its response to the story, said that the company does not
deny any of the issues raised in the Local 6 News report.

Siemens has disclosed that it does contract work out to a consultancy
service which brings workers here to fill certain jobs.

The company said that it has taken these actions to operate the
information technology function of its business more efficiently.
Siemens also said that it has so far helped five of the affected
employees find other comparable positions in the company.

Cooper said, "While the company does distinguish between full-time
employees and contractors, we should point out that its American
contractors who say they've just been replaced with other contractors--
who happen to be foreigners.

Copyright 2003 by Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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