"All of you Americans are fired"
December 9, 2015 11:04 AM Subscribe
"The H-2 guest worker program, which brought in 150,000 legal foreign workers last year, isn’t supposed to deprive any American of a job. But many businesses go to extraordinary lengths to deny jobs to U.S. workers so they can hire foreigners instead."
The H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program "allows agricultural employers to hire workers from other countries on temporary work permits for agricultural jobs that last ten months or less. To bring in H-2A guestworkers, employers must first show that they have tried and are unable to find U.S. workers to meet their labor needs." They work in conditions that have been called "Close to Slavery," where "Thousands of these workers have been abused — deprived of their fair pay, imprisoned, starved, beaten, raped, and threatened with deportation if they dare complain. And the government says it can do little to help."
For U.S. farmers and Mexican workers, it's tough being legal
The H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program "allows agricultural employers to hire workers from other countries on temporary work permits for agricultural jobs that last ten months or less. To bring in H-2A guestworkers, employers must first show that they have tried and are unable to find U.S. workers to meet their labor needs." They work in conditions that have been called "Close to Slavery," where "Thousands of these workers have been abused — deprived of their fair pay, imprisoned, starved, beaten, raped, and threatened with deportation if they dare complain. And the government says it can do little to help."
For U.S. farmers and Mexican workers, it's tough being legal
er... and NOT let anyone attack overseas workers. But hey, perhaps you got that point.
posted by markkraft at 12:07 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by markkraft at 12:07 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I'd file this under "abuse of labor laws & programs," not "immigrant problem depriving Americans of jobs."
posted by listen, lady at 12:09 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by listen, lady at 12:09 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
markkraft,
did you even read tfa?
If you did, please read it again for understanding. This is not anti-immigrant hysteria, it's an article outlining the exploitation of H2 loopholes and guest workers in order for companies to deny opportunities for qualified Americans to fill job openings available- because those qualified Americans are less able to be secretly exploited, cheated, and mis-trated without triggering repercussions.
posted by stagewhisper at 12:09 PM on December 9, 2015 [27 favorites]
did you even read tfa?
If you did, please read it again for understanding. This is not anti-immigrant hysteria, it's an article outlining the exploitation of H2 loopholes and guest workers in order for companies to deny opportunities for qualified Americans to fill job openings available- because those qualified Americans are less able to be secretly exploited, cheated, and mis-trated without triggering repercussions.
posted by stagewhisper at 12:09 PM on December 9, 2015 [27 favorites]
I grew up in a small farming community; a lot of the farms used H-2A workers from South America. I remember one year, the farmer across the road from us had some kind of trouble getting workers one year - there was some problem with the paperwork or something. He decided to let his entire crop rot in the field rather than hire American workers. Charitable organizations offered to do it for free, in exchange for a percentage of the produce, but he said no, and promised to shoot anyone he saw in his fields. I can still remember the smell of those stinking, rotting cabbage fields, and him standing on his porch with his gun.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:13 PM on December 9, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:13 PM on December 9, 2015 [16 favorites]
What was his incentive for doing so? I can't imagine that an insurer would pay out crop insurance on a crop that he intentionally let rot.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:16 PM on December 9, 2015
posted by Existential Dread at 12:16 PM on December 9, 2015
Why yes, yes I did read tfa. And I thought it was sensationalist, largely related to gross negligence on the part of certain members of congress, who have systematically gutted and unfunded regulation.
posted by markkraft at 12:17 PM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by markkraft at 12:17 PM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
The main Buzzfeed report also cited reports from 1996 -- nineteen years ago -- for its underpinnings, which basically tells me that if you have Google and an idea for a story, you can write anything these days... even if it does undermine those just trying to get a start in America.
posted by markkraft at 12:21 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by markkraft at 12:21 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
"the exploitation of H2 loopholes"
Pop quiz. Which of the following is an H-2 loophole?
a> Firing all Americans working for you, and hiring H-2 employees.
b> Not listing job openings in such a way as to deprive U.S. citizens a chance at them, and then signing documents saying that you have tried to hire US citizens and meet the legal basis for H-2 workers.
c> Making H-2 workers work long hours without overtime and/or charging them illegal fees.
d> Depriving H-2 workers of their pay, imprisoning them, starving them, beating them, raping them, and/or threatening them with deportation.
e> None of the above. All are egregious violations of existing US labor and criminal laws.
posted by markkraft at 12:46 PM on December 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Pop quiz. Which of the following is an H-2 loophole?
a> Firing all Americans working for you, and hiring H-2 employees.
b> Not listing job openings in such a way as to deprive U.S. citizens a chance at them, and then signing documents saying that you have tried to hire US citizens and meet the legal basis for H-2 workers.
c> Making H-2 workers work long hours without overtime and/or charging them illegal fees.
d> Depriving H-2 workers of their pay, imprisoning them, starving them, beating them, raping them, and/or threatening them with deportation.
e> None of the above. All are egregious violations of existing US labor and criminal laws.
posted by markkraft at 12:46 PM on December 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
What was his incentive for doing so? I can't imagine that an insurer would pay out crop insurance on a crop that he intentionally let rot.
I know there must be some piece of the puzzle I never knew. He was a scary crazy old bastard, for one thing, but you're right that there must have been more to it than that. Some kind of insurance fraud, maybe? It was all good-old-boy corrupt law and politics up there.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:53 PM on December 9, 2015
I know there must be some piece of the puzzle I never knew. He was a scary crazy old bastard, for one thing, but you're right that there must have been more to it than that. Some kind of insurance fraud, maybe? It was all good-old-boy corrupt law and politics up there.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:53 PM on December 9, 2015
"It was all good-old-boy corrupt law and politics up there."
The way you get rid of that problem is funding enforcement... and not just enforcement, but federal enforcement.
Inspectors from on high who fund jobs for more inspectors, in part, by taking away people's money and assets when they've egregiously violated the law, treating them as if they were common criminals, rather than just another businessman paying the price of doing business.
posted by markkraft at 1:02 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
The way you get rid of that problem is funding enforcement... and not just enforcement, but federal enforcement.
Inspectors from on high who fund jobs for more inspectors, in part, by taking away people's money and assets when they've egregiously violated the law, treating them as if they were common criminals, rather than just another businessman paying the price of doing business.
posted by markkraft at 1:02 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
even if it does undermine those just trying to get a start in America.
H-2 workers are not here to get a start in America.
One of the present issues is that in an era of desperation for work my local Americans (native born and immigrant), there is a system being exploited by those who take advantage of it to avoid hiring local wage earners.
posted by deanc at 1:02 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
H-2 workers are not here to get a start in America.
One of the present issues is that in an era of desperation for work my local Americans (native born and immigrant), there is a system being exploited by those who take advantage of it to avoid hiring local wage earners.
posted by deanc at 1:02 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
These jobs still have to pay minimum wage, and often a few dollars more. (The workers they import aren't dumb about the value they provide.) In the rural areas of states with stingy welfare benefits, these jobs are better than being out of work for anyone who isn't getting unemployment checks. A lot of peak harvest is in the summer and these can be MUCH better jobs for students who generally can't get any form of benefits or income substitution.
posted by MattD at 1:04 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 1:04 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
"H-2 workers are not here to get a start in America. "
Even George W. Bush was aware that many guest workers would, in fact, want to become future US citizens, and supported it, so long as they were -- or became -- part of the guest worker system and as they did it through applying.
"We will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary worker program. The program that I proposed would not create an automatic path to citizenship, A temporary worker program, by contrast, would decrease pressure on the border. I support the number of -- increasing the number of annual green cards that can lead to citizenship."
He even tried to use this guest worker status as a way of making privatized Social Security accounts a reality in the country, aware that the program could spread more widely if they eventually became US citizens.
"These private accounts ... will give these guest immigrants a future. They can invest the money they earn here as they see fit."
Technically, they are here to work, oftentimes leaving their own families to do so... but they also come here to learn the language, find new opportunities for themselves, and to try to get a piece of the American Dream. They often do have some options as to where to go and what to do, but they *choose* to come here. Why do you think that might be, I wonder?
The entire history of immigration to America is replete with layers upon layers and waves upon waves of immigration from guest workers, and it shows a profound lack of respect to them by suggesting that they don't exist.
posted by markkraft at 3:11 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Even George W. Bush was aware that many guest workers would, in fact, want to become future US citizens, and supported it, so long as they were -- or became -- part of the guest worker system and as they did it through applying.
"We will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary worker program. The program that I proposed would not create an automatic path to citizenship, A temporary worker program, by contrast, would decrease pressure on the border. I support the number of -- increasing the number of annual green cards that can lead to citizenship."
He even tried to use this guest worker status as a way of making privatized Social Security accounts a reality in the country, aware that the program could spread more widely if they eventually became US citizens.
"These private accounts ... will give these guest immigrants a future. They can invest the money they earn here as they see fit."
Technically, they are here to work, oftentimes leaving their own families to do so... but they also come here to learn the language, find new opportunities for themselves, and to try to get a piece of the American Dream. They often do have some options as to where to go and what to do, but they *choose* to come here. Why do you think that might be, I wonder?
The entire history of immigration to America is replete with layers upon layers and waves upon waves of immigration from guest workers, and it shows a profound lack of respect to them by suggesting that they don't exist.
posted by markkraft at 3:11 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Chinese immigrants were very much viewed as "guest workers" and non-citizens when they first came to America. They built the railroads and the telegraph lines, became very important with agriculture, and were denied the right to vote, massacred, lynched, and subject to the exclusion act, which banned their brides and families from coming into the country (legally) for about 60 years.
The first Mexican guest worker program actually dates back to WWI, due to labor shortages... and led to increased immigration.
And that, of course, doesn't even touch upon all the people from other, whiter countries that came here as "skilled" overseas laborers and immigrants, with far more generous quotas.
posted by markkraft at 3:42 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The first Mexican guest worker program actually dates back to WWI, due to labor shortages... and led to increased immigration.
And that, of course, doesn't even touch upon all the people from other, whiter countries that came here as "skilled" overseas laborers and immigrants, with far more generous quotas.
posted by markkraft at 3:42 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Canada has temporary guest workers from mostly Latin America to do harvesting and other menial agricultural work. I don't think there's even a pretense anymore that this is a stopgap measure because of a labour shortage; it's simply a successful strategy to avoid paying as much as minimum wage & benefits.
There's also been some fairly brazen attempts to replace skilled staff with lower-paid temporary guest workers that get rotated in.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:01 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's also been some fairly brazen attempts to replace skilled staff with lower-paid temporary guest workers that get rotated in.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:01 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
I find that when reading most of these articles about foreign worker recruitment, it's helpful to follow each variation of "we can't find local people to take these jobs" by adding in "...at the wages we feel like paying them." It's a complicated problem, but it definitely seems like the system is being abused, it creates so many precarious workers and exploitable situations for the bad actors in these industries.
posted by MaximumTaco at 4:45 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by MaximumTaco at 4:45 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
Many of these jobs are deadend, boring, or just plain dirty, hard, demoralizing work, no better than unemployment.
Therefore under supply and demand, the free market offers higher rates of pay to encourage people to take these jobs, right? Oh wait ...
If a job is so bad that the only way to fill it is by importing foreigners desperate for work, the answer is to raise wages in that job until citizens start applying. That gives employers incentives to make that job less bad, so that they don't need to pay extra to get applicants. If a job simply can't be filled at a wage the employer can offer, then perhaps it's a job that should be eliminated by finding some other way to achieve the desired result. By mechanisation, by re-engineering, or any other route than by bringing in external labour and perpetuating that bad job.
(Edited to fix inconsistent case, jobs > job)
posted by Autumn Leaf at 5:18 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
Therefore under supply and demand, the free market offers higher rates of pay to encourage people to take these jobs, right? Oh wait ...
If a job is so bad that the only way to fill it is by importing foreigners desperate for work, the answer is to raise wages in that job until citizens start applying. That gives employers incentives to make that job less bad, so that they don't need to pay extra to get applicants. If a job simply can't be filled at a wage the employer can offer, then perhaps it's a job that should be eliminated by finding some other way to achieve the desired result. By mechanisation, by re-engineering, or any other route than by bringing in external labour and perpetuating that bad job.
(Edited to fix inconsistent case, jobs > job)
posted by Autumn Leaf at 5:18 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
They often do have some options as to where to go and what to do, but they *choose* to come here. Why do you think that might be, I wonder?
To make higher wages than they would be able to get in their own countries and to use those wages to send money back to their homes, which allows them to get their children a better education, build better houses in their hometowns, etc.
Certain visas are for immigration purposes or long-term stays in the USA. Certain visas are not. H-2 visas fall into the latter category.
There may be justifiable reasons for these low-paid guest worker programs: perhaps farms working on thin margins might not be sustainable if they had to pay higher wages, and we have a tangible national interest in maintaining farmland for food security purposes. There may be other ways of handling this, possibly by increases farm subsidies so they can sustain themselves with higher paid labor. However, the entire point is to make sure that, especially in hard economic times, US citizens and permanent residents get first crack at these jobs before companies and farms cry for help that they need to bring in foreign labor.
Chinese immigrants were very much viewed as "guest workers" and non-citizens when they first came to America. They built the railroads and the telegraph lines, became very important with agriculture
One should note that one of the reasons the railroad and telegraph companies wanted to bring them in was because they wanted a more compliant workforce that would break the ability of the unions to demand better working conditions and higher wages.
There are reasons for guest workers, hard-to-find specialists from abroad, and lots of other forms of immigration and expatriate labor in the USA. However, one of the problems we have been confronting over the last 30 years has been the hollowing out of the middle class in part because businesses have both market and legal leverage to use and abuse low wage labor.
posted by deanc at 6:53 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
To make higher wages than they would be able to get in their own countries and to use those wages to send money back to their homes, which allows them to get their children a better education, build better houses in their hometowns, etc.
Certain visas are for immigration purposes or long-term stays in the USA. Certain visas are not. H-2 visas fall into the latter category.
There may be justifiable reasons for these low-paid guest worker programs: perhaps farms working on thin margins might not be sustainable if they had to pay higher wages, and we have a tangible national interest in maintaining farmland for food security purposes. There may be other ways of handling this, possibly by increases farm subsidies so they can sustain themselves with higher paid labor. However, the entire point is to make sure that, especially in hard economic times, US citizens and permanent residents get first crack at these jobs before companies and farms cry for help that they need to bring in foreign labor.
Chinese immigrants were very much viewed as "guest workers" and non-citizens when they first came to America. They built the railroads and the telegraph lines, became very important with agriculture
One should note that one of the reasons the railroad and telegraph companies wanted to bring them in was because they wanted a more compliant workforce that would break the ability of the unions to demand better working conditions and higher wages.
There are reasons for guest workers, hard-to-find specialists from abroad, and lots of other forms of immigration and expatriate labor in the USA. However, one of the problems we have been confronting over the last 30 years has been the hollowing out of the middle class in part because businesses have both market and legal leverage to use and abuse low wage labor.
posted by deanc at 6:53 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
If a job is so bad that the only way to fill it is by importing foreigners desperate for work, the answer is to raise wages in that job until citizens start applying.
The argument from farmers I have talked to is that they are competing against producers overseas who are paying extremely low wages (and who don't have to comply with any environmental regulations, which is another story entirely). So if we were willing to block all imports of produce and pay the prices at the grocery store for high wages, then yes, you could have local labor. We, collectively, are obviously not willing to pay those prices, so the work-around is a variety of exploitative labor situations.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:56 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
The argument from farmers I have talked to is that they are competing against producers overseas who are paying extremely low wages (and who don't have to comply with any environmental regulations, which is another story entirely). So if we were willing to block all imports of produce and pay the prices at the grocery store for high wages, then yes, you could have local labor. We, collectively, are obviously not willing to pay those prices, so the work-around is a variety of exploitative labor situations.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:56 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
it's helpful to follow each variation of "we can't find local people to take these jobs" by adding in "...at the wages we feel like paying them."
It's also helpful to follow that clause with "and sell the goods at a price Americans are prepared to pay." Of course, one reason why some Americans aren't willing to pay the price of goods produced by living-wage labour is because they're not being paid a living wage themselves, but that's an explanation and not an excuse. Americans mostly want cheap stuff that necessarily entails somebody in the chain of production getting fucked over, regardless of that somebody's citizenship.
posted by holgate at 6:59 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
It's also helpful to follow that clause with "and sell the goods at a price Americans are prepared to pay." Of course, one reason why some Americans aren't willing to pay the price of goods produced by living-wage labour is because they're not being paid a living wage themselves, but that's an explanation and not an excuse. Americans mostly want cheap stuff that necessarily entails somebody in the chain of production getting fucked over, regardless of that somebody's citizenship.
posted by holgate at 6:59 PM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
>This is mostly anti-immigrant hysteria, albeit with some arguments that the many on the left would be sympathetic to
No, it's mostly not.
The very similarly run HIB Visa program was pushed through by a political consortium of Microsoft, Intel and I sort of recall HP (not completely sure on HP as the third). All told the companies spent hundreds of millions of political money to push the bill through in the late 90's. Result: By 2004, tech salaries fell by 40 - 70% depending on which sector of the IT industry you were in.
Back in 2001 I worked, at a very large and well known (at the time) technology/finance firm. 70% (yes over 2/3rds) of the tech workers there were from India - the firm was located in Los Angeles by the way - plenty of tech workers there. At the time I was making 103,000 a year (never to be seen again). My Indian co-workers were making $20 - $25 an hour. Much less than half of what I and similar Americans at the company were making. They were abused - no overtime - no sick time - no benefits. I went went out for drinks and I got them to talk about it - their H1B visa locked them into the company. They could not leave. The moment they quit or left the company they had to go back to India. The moment they complained they were fired. They were fearful of talking about it at all
So it's not always about being anti-immigrant. In my H1B example , and I am sure it holds true for the H2 visas as well, the immigrants are taking away American jobs and they are being exploited as well as helping destroy the middle class. This is not the fault of foreign workers at all and no one should be blaming them. It is the fault of oligarchical, criminal capitalists who continue to make a fortune by breaking the backs of the middle class.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:26 PM on December 9, 2015 [10 favorites]
No, it's mostly not.
The very similarly run HIB Visa program was pushed through by a political consortium of Microsoft, Intel and I sort of recall HP (not completely sure on HP as the third). All told the companies spent hundreds of millions of political money to push the bill through in the late 90's. Result: By 2004, tech salaries fell by 40 - 70% depending on which sector of the IT industry you were in.
Back in 2001 I worked, at a very large and well known (at the time) technology/finance firm. 70% (yes over 2/3rds) of the tech workers there were from India - the firm was located in Los Angeles by the way - plenty of tech workers there. At the time I was making 103,000 a year (never to be seen again). My Indian co-workers were making $20 - $25 an hour. Much less than half of what I and similar Americans at the company were making. They were abused - no overtime - no sick time - no benefits. I went went out for drinks and I got them to talk about it - their H1B visa locked them into the company. They could not leave. The moment they quit or left the company they had to go back to India. The moment they complained they were fired. They were fearful of talking about it at all
So it's not always about being anti-immigrant. In my H1B example , and I am sure it holds true for the H2 visas as well, the immigrants are taking away American jobs and they are being exploited as well as helping destroy the middle class. This is not the fault of foreign workers at all and no one should be blaming them. It is the fault of oligarchical, criminal capitalists who continue to make a fortune by breaking the backs of the middle class.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:26 PM on December 9, 2015 [10 favorites]
Tech salaries at the top companies (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, etc) have gone up dramatically despite the H1-B visa, and its still incredibly hard for these companies to hire as they all compete for the exact same people. I'm reasonably convinced that low-end shops exploit the visa to underpay workers, but am completely unconvinced that is happening at the high end where I've spent the last 20 years. It's crazy hard to find people.
posted by thefoxgod at 8:50 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by thefoxgod at 8:50 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
(Although I think we should change H1-B visa to make it easier for workers to convert to permanent status if they want, since it makes way more sense to encourage high skill workers to stay in the US rather than give them money and experience and then kick them out. I know many who would have loved to stay here permanently.)
posted by thefoxgod at 8:52 PM on December 9, 2015
posted by thefoxgod at 8:52 PM on December 9, 2015
Tech salaries at the top companies (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, etc) have gone up dramatically despite the H1-B visa
I'm sorry but that is nonsense. Average salaries (inclusive of contract workers) have dropped 50%, give or take for both programmers and helpdesk workers. Average contract rate for a desktop support worker in mid-sized cities (exclusive of places such as the Bay Area and New York City) is now $17 an hour. Anyone can go to their local craigslist or dice and find that out for themselves. In 1999 the rate was 35+ an hour.
Average contract rate for .NET/SQL has only recently risen to $40-50 an hour (prior to last year it was below $35) . In 1999 that rate was 60 - 80 an hour. C and C++ contracts pull in $60-75 an hour - back in 1999 that rate was upwards of $200 /hr.
I have been working in the industry since '85 and am intensely aware of current rates in various parts of the country.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:57 PM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
I'm sorry but that is nonsense. Average salaries (inclusive of contract workers) have dropped 50%, give or take for both programmers and helpdesk workers. Average contract rate for a desktop support worker in mid-sized cities (exclusive of places such as the Bay Area and New York City) is now $17 an hour. Anyone can go to their local craigslist or dice and find that out for themselves. In 1999 the rate was 35+ an hour.
Average contract rate for .NET/SQL has only recently risen to $40-50 an hour (prior to last year it was below $35) . In 1999 that rate was 60 - 80 an hour. C and C++ contracts pull in $60-75 an hour - back in 1999 that rate was upwards of $200 /hr.
I have been working in the industry since '85 and am intensely aware of current rates in various parts of the country.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:57 PM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
The very similarly run HIB Visa program
Oooh no. The H1B is a shitty visa class, but it's quite different. There ought to be a tech equivalent to the EB2 that does not job-lock and is not scalped by outsourcing firms every six months, but Congress hasn't made that happen because Congress is shit at immigration reform because Americans don't like thinking about what they actually want from immigration law. Microsoft and Google are not competing with Wipro and Infosys here: they want to bring non-Americans over quickly and easily because tech talent is global, but they have to work with the visa classes that are available.
There are a lot of people who are frankly cranks about the H1B, and that's something of a derail and also not a good look.
If Americans could simultaneously vote for closing the borders to all foreigners but having them magically appear to harvest their salad vegetables and chop their canned fruit and slaughter their livestock at sub-minimum wage, they'd do so. And in a way, they already do.
posted by holgate at 8:57 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oooh no. The H1B is a shitty visa class, but it's quite different. There ought to be a tech equivalent to the EB2 that does not job-lock and is not scalped by outsourcing firms every six months, but Congress hasn't made that happen because Congress is shit at immigration reform because Americans don't like thinking about what they actually want from immigration law. Microsoft and Google are not competing with Wipro and Infosys here: they want to bring non-Americans over quickly and easily because tech talent is global, but they have to work with the visa classes that are available.
There are a lot of people who are frankly cranks about the H1B, and that's something of a derail and also not a good look.
If Americans could simultaneously vote for closing the borders to all foreigners but having them magically appear to harvest their salad vegetables and chop their canned fruit and slaughter their livestock at sub-minimum wage, they'd do so. And in a way, they already do.
posted by holgate at 8:57 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
There is nothing derailing about the fact that various foreign visa programs are being used, against every intent of the law ,to replace what should be American jobs by a grossly underpaid workforce of foreign workers, be it agriculture or High-tech.
The effect is the same in each industry - both Americans and foreign workers are being exploited and Big Business,, be it Agriculture or Tech is, and has been for years, pouring millions to politicians in order to do that. That's the whole point of the original post.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 9:09 PM on December 9, 2015
The effect is the same in each industry - both Americans and foreign workers are being exploited and Big Business,, be it Agriculture or Tech is, and has been for years, pouring millions to politicians in order to do that. That's the whole point of the original post.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 9:09 PM on December 9, 2015
It's crazy hard to find people.
There are literally millions of tech software and hardware engineers in the U.S., but apparently they are all working for your competitors because your company sucks -- either it has a bad reputation as a place to work or you aren't paying enough, or both.
The same goes for agricultural workers. If they couldn't find enough workers during the worst recession and unemployment since the 1930s, they aren't really trying.
It's always amazes me that employers are so willing to debase themselves by complaining they can't find anyone to work for them. It's like the slovenly drunk at the bar whining to the bartender that there just aren't enough good women. How embarrassing.
posted by JackFlash at 10:01 PM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
There are literally millions of tech software and hardware engineers in the U.S., but apparently they are all working for your competitors because your company sucks -- either it has a bad reputation as a place to work or you aren't paying enough, or both.
The same goes for agricultural workers. If they couldn't find enough workers during the worst recession and unemployment since the 1930s, they aren't really trying.
It's always amazes me that employers are so willing to debase themselves by complaining they can't find anyone to work for them. It's like the slovenly drunk at the bar whining to the bartender that there just aren't enough good women. How embarrassing.
posted by JackFlash at 10:01 PM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
"If a job is so bad that the only way to fill it is by importing foreigners desperate for work, the answer is to raise wages in that job until citizens start applying. That gives employers incentives to make that job less bad, so that they don't need to pay extra to get applicants."
So basically, you are arguing that Americans -- especially those in Republican states where benefits are as low as possible -- should suffer from widespread hunger and malnutrition due to massively higher food prices... or that we basically let the world's richest agricultural land lie fallow, as people around the world starve and see their prices for food go up... all while making bad jobs really not much better.
Have you ever visited California's Central Valley in summer, for example? It's stiflingly hot -- sometimes in excess of 120 degrees in the fields -- with routine air quality warnings and an epidemic of children and other vulnerable people on inhalers. And the crops need to be picked when they need to be picked. 10 hour days. People die from heatstroke doing it, even with improved standards and without negligence.
Seriously, the only comparison I can think of in terms of miserable, dangerous working conditions are the Alaskan crab fishermen, who often earn about $15,000 a month... as opposed to $8 an hour.
But of course, if you want those jobs to exist, you would have to put *HUGE* tariffs on imports from Mexico, Peru, and everywhere else. I routinely see 1 lb. baskets of Mexican strawberries in S.F. -- an expensive city -- for as little as a buck. We pay people $85 to work in California's fields for 10 hours... and across the border in Baja California, Mexico's unions are fighting for a pay raise of 200 pesos -- $13 dollars -- for the same working day. Chances are, they aren't going to get their $13 a day anytime soon.
The truth is, you won't get Americans who aren't from recent, relatively impoverished immigrant families doing that work in California for anything less than $25 an hour, if that. You would never get more than a very minor amount of white field hands, certainly. Those who were white would almost certainly disproportionately take away the low-level management positions. And even then, there wouldn't be enough to do all the work, and it would tend to trap recent immigrants into a lifestyle that is grueling, nasty, and oftentimes short, with substandard education and limited opportunities for their families, outside the fields.
" If a job simply can't be filled at a wage the employer can offer, then perhaps it's a job that should be eliminated by finding some other way to achieve the desired result."
Which is to say, let US farms die, and people from around the world pay considerably more for food, thereby making hunger and malnutrition worse everywhere.
No. The only humane thing, frankly, is to grow crops. The world needs US agriculture. That means that we have to accept paying people less than they really deserve. There really aren't that many good options available in a democratic government to change this status quo. At least the current situation is one based on people choosing to come to this country and do the work, which is about as good as we can hope for. Really, if it were up to me, working in America's fields for x years would put you and your family on a guaranteed path to citizenship, just like military service. Thank you, Jesus.
"Certain visas are not (for immigration). H-2 visas fall into the latter category."
You underestimate the nature of human hope. Lots of people with "limited skills" -- i.e. experienced, talented field hands -- view it as their best chance.
"one of the problems we have been confronting over the last 30 years has been the hollowing out of the middle class in part because businesses have both market and legal leverage to use and abuse low wage labor."
There have been numerous recent studies that have been *VERY* clear. Low wage workers like we are talking about here -- and illegal aliens -- create middle class jobs, far more than any possible negative impact they have on the US economy.
"if we were willing to block all imports of produce and pay the prices at the grocery store for high wages, then yes, you could have local labor."
Yes, exactly that. And we'd also have to accept that states -- especially Republican-run states -- would continue to pay their poor and their children a pittance that they would then absolutely not be able to live on.
"All told the companies spent hundreds of millions of political money to push the bill through in the late 90's. Result: By 2004, tech salaries fell by 40 - 70% depending on which sector of the IT industry you were in."
I worked in IT in the late '90s, only to see our entire department outsourced to Mumbai, with the exception of a very few people needed to basically plug in machines. The actual setup was pre-installed to the degree possible, and maintained over the corporate intranet from overseas.
The real truth is, most of those jobs were outsourced, not replaced by guest workers. Wages plummeted even before much of the outsourcing that happened, because the entire tech industry went through the dotcom crash and had widespread unemployment -- an employer's market. It only got worse with the overseas outsourcing.
And the fact is, this change in job income affected far more people in the computer industry than just IT. It affected me when I went into Technical Writing, which, frankly, was never outsourced anywhere near the level that IT was, due to the problems with non-native writers. I used to pull down $90 a hour contract work, no problem, but nowadays, people are still lucky to get half that, in part because the recession took a still seriously damaged high-tech industry and made it suffer again. Tech writers, frankly, are competing largely against other US tech writers, specifically because of the dawdling economy and all the other Americans who thought pulling down $90 an hour sounded like a good idea.
The guest tech workers were really not the problem. Higher tech wages are only now beginning to come back in Silicon Valley, but it has a lot more to do with unemployment there dropping below 4% after so many years than anything else. High tech jobs tend to come back at the corporate HQs first, so just as tens of thousands of techies came to the Silicon Valley from the rest of the US in the past, in pursuit of fat paychecks, thereby requiring significant paychecks elsewhere... well, that will tend to happen again, but it will probably never be as disproportionately big as it used to be, because the buzz has, to a certain degree, moved on to other things, and the high tech job market as a whole has become global and significantly outsourced.
...but that's okay, because, let's be honest, we got a pretty cushy deal back in the day. It certainly beat picking strawberries.
posted by markkraft at 11:04 PM on December 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
So basically, you are arguing that Americans -- especially those in Republican states where benefits are as low as possible -- should suffer from widespread hunger and malnutrition due to massively higher food prices... or that we basically let the world's richest agricultural land lie fallow, as people around the world starve and see their prices for food go up... all while making bad jobs really not much better.
Have you ever visited California's Central Valley in summer, for example? It's stiflingly hot -- sometimes in excess of 120 degrees in the fields -- with routine air quality warnings and an epidemic of children and other vulnerable people on inhalers. And the crops need to be picked when they need to be picked. 10 hour days. People die from heatstroke doing it, even with improved standards and without negligence.
Seriously, the only comparison I can think of in terms of miserable, dangerous working conditions are the Alaskan crab fishermen, who often earn about $15,000 a month... as opposed to $8 an hour.
But of course, if you want those jobs to exist, you would have to put *HUGE* tariffs on imports from Mexico, Peru, and everywhere else. I routinely see 1 lb. baskets of Mexican strawberries in S.F. -- an expensive city -- for as little as a buck. We pay people $85 to work in California's fields for 10 hours... and across the border in Baja California, Mexico's unions are fighting for a pay raise of 200 pesos -- $13 dollars -- for the same working day. Chances are, they aren't going to get their $13 a day anytime soon.
The truth is, you won't get Americans who aren't from recent, relatively impoverished immigrant families doing that work in California for anything less than $25 an hour, if that. You would never get more than a very minor amount of white field hands, certainly. Those who were white would almost certainly disproportionately take away the low-level management positions. And even then, there wouldn't be enough to do all the work, and it would tend to trap recent immigrants into a lifestyle that is grueling, nasty, and oftentimes short, with substandard education and limited opportunities for their families, outside the fields.
" If a job simply can't be filled at a wage the employer can offer, then perhaps it's a job that should be eliminated by finding some other way to achieve the desired result."
Which is to say, let US farms die, and people from around the world pay considerably more for food, thereby making hunger and malnutrition worse everywhere.
No. The only humane thing, frankly, is to grow crops. The world needs US agriculture. That means that we have to accept paying people less than they really deserve. There really aren't that many good options available in a democratic government to change this status quo. At least the current situation is one based on people choosing to come to this country and do the work, which is about as good as we can hope for. Really, if it were up to me, working in America's fields for x years would put you and your family on a guaranteed path to citizenship, just like military service. Thank you, Jesus.
"Certain visas are not (for immigration). H-2 visas fall into the latter category."
You underestimate the nature of human hope. Lots of people with "limited skills" -- i.e. experienced, talented field hands -- view it as their best chance.
"one of the problems we have been confronting over the last 30 years has been the hollowing out of the middle class in part because businesses have both market and legal leverage to use and abuse low wage labor."
There have been numerous recent studies that have been *VERY* clear. Low wage workers like we are talking about here -- and illegal aliens -- create middle class jobs, far more than any possible negative impact they have on the US economy.
"if we were willing to block all imports of produce and pay the prices at the grocery store for high wages, then yes, you could have local labor."
Yes, exactly that. And we'd also have to accept that states -- especially Republican-run states -- would continue to pay their poor and their children a pittance that they would then absolutely not be able to live on.
"All told the companies spent hundreds of millions of political money to push the bill through in the late 90's. Result: By 2004, tech salaries fell by 40 - 70% depending on which sector of the IT industry you were in."
I worked in IT in the late '90s, only to see our entire department outsourced to Mumbai, with the exception of a very few people needed to basically plug in machines. The actual setup was pre-installed to the degree possible, and maintained over the corporate intranet from overseas.
The real truth is, most of those jobs were outsourced, not replaced by guest workers. Wages plummeted even before much of the outsourcing that happened, because the entire tech industry went through the dotcom crash and had widespread unemployment -- an employer's market. It only got worse with the overseas outsourcing.
And the fact is, this change in job income affected far more people in the computer industry than just IT. It affected me when I went into Technical Writing, which, frankly, was never outsourced anywhere near the level that IT was, due to the problems with non-native writers. I used to pull down $90 a hour contract work, no problem, but nowadays, people are still lucky to get half that, in part because the recession took a still seriously damaged high-tech industry and made it suffer again. Tech writers, frankly, are competing largely against other US tech writers, specifically because of the dawdling economy and all the other Americans who thought pulling down $90 an hour sounded like a good idea.
The guest tech workers were really not the problem. Higher tech wages are only now beginning to come back in Silicon Valley, but it has a lot more to do with unemployment there dropping below 4% after so many years than anything else. High tech jobs tend to come back at the corporate HQs first, so just as tens of thousands of techies came to the Silicon Valley from the rest of the US in the past, in pursuit of fat paychecks, thereby requiring significant paychecks elsewhere... well, that will tend to happen again, but it will probably never be as disproportionately big as it used to be, because the buzz has, to a certain degree, moved on to other things, and the high tech job market as a whole has become global and significantly outsourced.
...but that's okay, because, let's be honest, we got a pretty cushy deal back in the day. It certainly beat picking strawberries.
posted by markkraft at 11:04 PM on December 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Low wage workers like we are talking about here -- and illegal aliens -- create middle class jobs, far more than any possible negative impact they have on the US economy.
And yet, we have a hollowed out middle classes with stagnant wages and ongoing loss of economic security. I don't blame immigration for that by any means. However, because we have had such high levels of immigration, you would think that the middle class would be stronger, and yet it has become weaker. (I suppose you could argue, "but it would be EVEN WEAKER without low wage immigration!")
ou underestimate the nature of human hope
H-2 visa holders are as smart as any of us and understand their goals and the limitations of what opportunities are available to them under the terms of their visas, which given the geographically constrained nature of their jobs provide far fewer opportunities to stay in the US compared to simply sneaking in. H-2 visas fulfill a genuine need: there REALLY ARE some people who don't want to stay in the USA permanently but like chance to make more money than they would have in their home countries and bring their savings back home.
In any case, as for the notorious abuse of the H1B program, much outsourcing turned out to be a bust, so H1Bs have been used to fill up "body shop" consulting companies who do not produce anything themselves but are rather hired by larger corporations to perform IT services and maintenance, replacing the in-house staff.
Now under normal circumstances in any other industry, the services shop would basically hire the corporate employees (or people similar), and operations would continue as normal, just with the parent Corp having spun off responsibility for those tasks. Instead, however, we have a completely different pool of labor imported *under a visa program meant to fill jobs that have hard to find skills* (which they obviously aren't since Americans are already doing them).
And why do Google and Microsoft want more of these visas? Simply because they ARE looking for people with highly specialized skills to produce their software, but the visa quota has already been filled by the consulting shops who are using those visas as a source of low cost labor allowing them to underbid competing consulting shops and as well as showing cost savings to clients over in-house services.
posted by deanc at 5:44 AM on December 10, 2015
And yet, we have a hollowed out middle classes with stagnant wages and ongoing loss of economic security. I don't blame immigration for that by any means. However, because we have had such high levels of immigration, you would think that the middle class would be stronger, and yet it has become weaker. (I suppose you could argue, "but it would be EVEN WEAKER without low wage immigration!")
ou underestimate the nature of human hope
H-2 visa holders are as smart as any of us and understand their goals and the limitations of what opportunities are available to them under the terms of their visas, which given the geographically constrained nature of their jobs provide far fewer opportunities to stay in the US compared to simply sneaking in. H-2 visas fulfill a genuine need: there REALLY ARE some people who don't want to stay in the USA permanently but like chance to make more money than they would have in their home countries and bring their savings back home.
In any case, as for the notorious abuse of the H1B program, much outsourcing turned out to be a bust, so H1Bs have been used to fill up "body shop" consulting companies who do not produce anything themselves but are rather hired by larger corporations to perform IT services and maintenance, replacing the in-house staff.
Now under normal circumstances in any other industry, the services shop would basically hire the corporate employees (or people similar), and operations would continue as normal, just with the parent Corp having spun off responsibility for those tasks. Instead, however, we have a completely different pool of labor imported *under a visa program meant to fill jobs that have hard to find skills* (which they obviously aren't since Americans are already doing them).
And why do Google and Microsoft want more of these visas? Simply because they ARE looking for people with highly specialized skills to produce their software, but the visa quota has already been filled by the consulting shops who are using those visas as a source of low cost labor allowing them to underbid competing consulting shops and as well as showing cost savings to clients over in-house services.
posted by deanc at 5:44 AM on December 10, 2015
Of course, one reason why some Americans aren't willing to pay the price of goods produced by living-wage labour is because they're not being paid a living wage themselves, but that's an explanation and not an excuse.
Well, you can chicken-and-egg that one till the cows come home.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:57 AM on December 10, 2015
Well, you can chicken-and-egg that one till the cows come home.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:57 AM on December 10, 2015
I'm sorry but that is nonsense. Average salaries (inclusive of contract workers) have dropped 50%, give or take for both programmers and helpdesk workers. Average contract rate for a desktop support worker in mid-sized cities (exclusive of places such as the Bay Area and New York City) is now $17 an hour. Anyone can go to their local craigslist or dice and find that out for themselves. In 1999 the rate was 35+ an hou
Are you talking about IT companies as a whole? Because thats not what I said. I'm only talking about the top 1-5% of jobs, where salaries have clearly gone up way above inflation. Starting salary for engineers in these companies is well into 6 figures (compared to more like $60k when I started 20 years ago), senior engineers are making in the mid 100s to 200. These companies use H1-Bs, but they are paid more or less the same (certainly in every case where I've talked about it with coworkers we were in the same ballpark regardless of visa).
I absolutely _agree_ that regular IT companies are a completely different entity, but since Microsoft was brought up as somehow using this to depress wages I was responding to that point.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:16 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Stan Eury turned an obscure bit of immigration law into a mammoth federal program — and a lucrative business empire, importing hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers for legal American jobs. Except that some of the jobs weren’t real jobs, and an untold number of those workers may never have returned to Mexico at all.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:33 AM on December 30, 2015
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:33 AM on December 30, 2015
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The basis of the attack on the H-2 program we see here is essentially similar in structure to the attacks that you see in Britain by the conservatives against health care, where they focus on a few specific examples as indicative of a huge problem with the entire system, even as it is very obvious that the program, in its entirety, is a good thing.
The truth is, there will always be businesses who will cheat workers, so long as the enforcement is lax and the cost of getting caught is less than the benefits accrued.
We are talking about 150,000 H-2 workers last year, in total, for all 50 states -- not a lot for generally low-skilled work, when you consider that we've had zero net migration from Mexico since 2010, and have actually had migration to Mexico over the past few years, of which a very small percentage might be hired in a way that could, potentially, take away jobs Americans would work.
In other words, unskilled H-2 workers are far more likely to take away the jobs of illegal immigrants than US citizens... and illegal immigrants typically have considerably worse, more exploitive job conditions than H-2 workers, which kind of renders the otherwise valid complaints about job conditions for overseas workers moot.
Despite everything, what we are seeing is an improving situation, as compared to the Bush administration.
Meanwhile, despite relatively high unemployment, the US has a surprising amount of unfilled low income / low skill jobs right now that many Americans will not work, sometimes for perfectly understandable reasons. Many of these jobs are deadend, boring, or just plain dirty, hard, demoralizing work, no better than unemployment.
I think it's important to keep these issues in mind, and let anyone attack overseas workers -- many of whom are working hard to become future US citizens -- just because there are some problems with the system, especially when the Republicans refuse to support the kind of enforcement that would protect the rights of both US workers *AND* our guest workers / future fellow Americans.
Don't throw out the immigrants. Throw out the GOP.
posted by markkraft at 12:01 PM on December 9, 2015 [20 favorites]