Indiana's Drozda Answers Back

Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 7:22 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

I explained in the newsletter "Doubletalk from Indiana State Senator
Drozda" 12/5/2003 that his bill to allow 20% of state employees to be
H-1Bs will allow the State of Indiana to replace 100% of their
computer/IT staff and they will still have tens of thousands of
left-over visas to replace a multitude of other state employees.

I received this reply from Drozda today:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Drozda [mailto:JDROZDA@iga.state.in.us]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 2:09 PM
> Subject: RE: H-1Bs

Rob,

I must say that I am disappointed in you and your response to me and
others regarding my bill. Your lack of faith in elected officials is
unfortunate, but not unexpected. Some do fail the electorate. I have
not.

The news story was incorrect. Here's the situation: My bill to have
only US workers employed on Indiana state contacts was heard for the
first time a few weeks ago. I never dreamed it would be this difficult
to stand up for American workers! Republicans and Democrats alike were
concerned about how Indiana would be "viewed" from a global
perspective. They thought my bill was "too extreme." It was shocking.

Nonetheless the bill will die in committee if the bill is not changed
in some ways to appease those who don't have the political fortitude to
take this issue on. The new proposed language that has received the
most support says that 80% US citizens must be employed on state
contracts and thus 20% may be non-US citizens. The story said 20% of
the work, it should have said workers. Big difference. Included in
this 20% would be green card holders of 10 years or longer.

So we can let the bill die and continue to have 100% of the jobs go
away or we can amend the bill to save 80% of the jobs. What do you
think?

I would appreciate you sending the correct story to your list. I would
also be open to language that helps our cause, not hurts it.

Jeff Drozda
Indiana State Senator

It appears that Drozda might have tried to do the right things with his
original bill, but was forced to compromise. If Drozda got beat up
because he was standing up for American workers we should all support
him to stand up to whomever coerced him to alter his bill with the 20%
compromise.

My first impression upon reading Drozda's reply was that he didn't read
the entire newsletter because he didn't seem to understand how
devastating his 20% compromise was, so I resent it to him and asked for
comments. Here is his answer:

I don't think you understand. The bill is dead right now
unless these changes are made. Is that what you want? A
dead bill means that 100% will go offshore. I don't want
that. Tell me what will work. Don't tell people to
complain to me, tell them to complain to the Senators on
the committee who want this change. Try helping the
situation not hurting it. I am trying to save American jobs.
Your comments are offensive.

You say my language will devastate the IT industry in Indiana.
What is happening right now? All the work can go overseas.
My langauge will make 80% of the workers be US citizens.
Now it is 0%

Drozda doesn't seem to understand that if Indiana chooses to replace
American programmers with foreigners on H-1B and L-1 visas, it makes no
difference if these jobs are shipped to India or if they are taken away
by the nonimmigrants. His ammendment will not create jobs for American
programmers that need jobs. Instead, Indiana will use the lowest cost
contractor they can find, and that means that an H-1B bodyshop like
TATA will get the contract to improve their unemployment processing
computer system. (TATA was mentioned as the contractor)

His bill should simply say that no state contracts can be outsourced to
a foreign country and that nobody but American citizens can work on
state contracts. It should also say that Green Card workers are OK but
the state cannot sponsor them for visas. This statement about Green
Cards is necessary because the State of New Mexico has an ongoing
scandal after the state paid for their H-1Bs to be get Green Cards in
order to permanently work on their welfare computer.

If Drozda truly wants to give these jobs to US citizens he should
explain to Indiana voters why his original bill to protect these jobs
will be defeated and who is opposing it. Once the voters know who is
responsible for this betrayal, expect the rats to scurry as fast as
they can from the State Capitol!

Drozda should use this opportunity to shine like Shirley Turner, State
Senator from New Jersey. Turner didn't win a total victory but she
courageously stood up to the shills who wanted to give the state jobs
to cheap foreign workers.

Drozda won't like Dr. Matloff's analysis any more than my earlier
newsletter. It's going to be up to Drozda whether cares to understand
the problems with his compromise and whether he is willing to fight it.
Indiana activists need to meet with Drozda and find out exactly what is
going on.

Dr. Matloff's analysis below parallels my earlier newsletter. It's
about time for Drozda to correct the problems that we pointed out.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Norm Matloff [mailto:matloff@laura.cs.ucdavis.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 10:28 PM
> To: Norm Matloff
> Subject: fake legislation in Indiana

Most of you will recall that an Indiana state legislator, Senator Jeff
Drozda, was outraged over the fact that the state awarded a large
software contract to an Indian firm. The work would be done by a
combination of H-1Bs in the U.S. and workers back in India.

Drozda is drafting a bill to outlaw this kind of thing--or is he?

It starts out sounding good:

A U.S. state legislator on Tuesday said he was optimistic a law he
proposed to bar non-U.S. workers from working on state computer
contracts would pass next year.

But whoa, wait a minute, read the fine print.

Meanwhile, Indiana's Drozda said he'll revise his proposal to permit
as much as 20 percent of state work to be handled by non-citizens.

IT work of course comprises much less than 20 percent of Indiana's
state business. SO, DROZDA'S REVISION WOULD ALLOW 100% OF ITS COMPUTER
WORK TO GO TO H-1BS, L-1S AND OFFSHORE WORKERS!

In other words, the bill is a total fake. And Drozda has the gall to
be soliciting support from the citizenry, asking him to e-mail support
at S21@IN.GOV Unless the article below misquotes him, his action seems
to be truly slimy.

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