H-1B Protest @ UC San Diego

H-1B Protest @ UC San Diego - Part 2

Date: Sunday, June 01, 2003 9:19 AM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

The protest in San Diego might have been small but it just takes a
match to light a fire.

Be sure to check out the Pink Slip link. More people need to be pink
slipped!

An article appeared in India Times that didn't seem very worried about
protests in the United States. In their opinion it will be "business as
usual" because the protests aren't a threat.

-----Original Message-----
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 11:14 PM

Fellow H-1B Reformers,

The H-1B protest at the UCSD Bill Gates event went well, and Bryce J.
drove all the way from Los Angeles to carry his picket sign. It was an
excellent sign too--far better than my chicken-scratch efforts:
http://h1b.info/protest.jpg

We handed out nearly 200 "pink slips" to those lined up waiting for the
lecture (http://h1b.info/pink_slip.pdf). While we were photographed and
videotaped by the press, we didn't get interviewed which goes to show
how hard it is to compete with Bill Gates.

Our message was generally well received although I did get into 5
mini-debates, including one with a computer science professor that was
late for class.

College undergraduates don't seem to think much about post-graduation
job market or perhaps they try not to think about it.

Unfortunately, I didn't see Bill [Gates] since he slipped-out into his
Lincoln Navigator after the lecture.

That's all for now,
William

I happened to be down in San Diego on a job interview (they decided to
go off-shore to Mexico - a first for me, and India) and went over to
UCSD for the Gates event. Of the thousands in attendance, there were
two (2) picketers, both from www.h1b.info. They were having some
difficulty passing out their "pink slip" flyer to the still well-fed
students, but I asked for a copy and thanked them.

About the same number of people who were in the hall were unable to get
in (myself included) due to sheer size of the crowd and the time at
which they started to queue (I arrived about an hour before the event
was due to start and was near the end of the line). I had taken my
picket as well, but was more interested in keeping my place in line (in
hopes of questioning Mr. Gates) and so the picket stayed in the car.
Given the apparent large number of foreign students (approx. 1/2 of all
those milling and waiting), it is not surprising that they shied away
from the picketer's attempts to hand them a pink slip. I overheard
many saying "what's H1B" and no-one in the crowd who seemed
knowledgeable.

Given what I know about the problem Berkeley grads are having finding
work, I'd say these folks are in for a rude surprise. I think the pink
slip expresses that best with the cartoon they had at the bottom
entitled "Job Prospects for the Class of 2001 - Migrant Engineering
Labor" with two dialogs: student to himself, "Stupid worthless
Bachelor's Degree." and boss man on back of truck, "Okay, I need two
Ph.D.'s and a Master's of Science for one day of Fortran coding."

Regards,
---Gerry

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=478022803

Protests against outsourcing not to hurt IT firms

GAURAV BHAGOWATI

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2003 12:32:51 AM ]

NEW DELHI: Despite increasing resentment against shifting of back-end
contracts and jobs to India, mainly from the US and Europe, IT experts
here maintain that it is actually 'business as usual' for the industry.

They say that new laws being framed in those countries to check
outsourcing are limited to government contracts, which represent a very
small part of the total business. Besides, not a single bill has been
passed against outsourcing so far.

Broadly, this is the position taken by leading industry players like
Daksh, EXL and software industry lobby group Nasscom.

Daksh CEO Sanjeev Aggarwal says that business from government contracts

could be hit in the long-term. But adds: "Not many Indian vendors are
looking at the government vertical and the private sector is growing."

Echoes Vikram Talwar, CEO of EXL Services: "I don't see why one should
over react to an issue that is in no way hurting our business. Our
business is good and continues to grow."

And, industry feels this development is leading to nowhere. Says
Nasscom's Sunil Mehta, "while this hype has been raised for the past
one year, no real impact has come through on this issue till now.

Nasscom has another point. It says that MNCs outsource less than 5 per
cent of their total IT/R&D/BPO budgets to Indian vendors. Besides,
productivity, cost and quality gains to US and European businesses and
their consumers easily outweigh the significance of these pockets of
resistance.

A McKinsey study said the ITeS market in US may touch $142 billion by
2009. This is against the current cost of $532 billion. So, the
difference of $390 billion is the net saving of the US economy.

Despite the optimism, India Inc must face the emotional facet
(protecting jobs) of the issue. "The Kevin Flanagan shooting last April
is just another incident that's adding to the overall stress factor,"
says a Mumbai-based IT and BPO services consultant. And, New
Jersey-based BPO consultancy Inductis said the issue is here to stay
and the growing negative publicity must be addressed.

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