7 ms·

This article embodies a sleight of hand: it assumes that the jobs the companies want to hire immigrants to fill are the same ones they've laid people off from.

• Jayschwa 13y ago
  Even if it were the case, does it matter? Competition is becoming increasingly globalized. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. Protectionism in the form of onerous immigration regulations is a losing battle and only delays the inevitable.
  • gaius 13y ago
    The question is really, what is a government for? If it is not to look out for the best interests of citizens, why are they paying its taxes snd obeying its laws? It is not protectionism at all to level the playing field, America was built on immigration, but the H1B is indentured servitude.
    • Jayschwa 13y ago
      > If it is not to look out for the best interests of citizens, why are they paying taxes? It's in the best interest of the person who has to compete with the immigrant, but it's not in the best interest of anyone else - citizen or otherwise. Immigration benefits other citizens in the form of cheaper products and services. Immigration also benefits the immigrant (if it didn't, they wouldn't be trying to get in). This issue is somewhat personal for me because I have foreign friends who are good engineers and would like to work here, but can't because of the regulations. > It is not protectionism at all to level the playing field This isn't leveling the playing field, this is refusing to let other (potentially better) players on the field because we have less capable players (who happened to be here first).
      • gaius 13y ago
        Not true, unless said "better" players have Green Cards. And there is already a process for that. The only purpose of H1B the legal construct is to erode workers rights.
        • snowwrestler 13y ago
          So the problem is H1B process specifically? You'd support a skilled worker immigration program if it used the Green Card process instead?
          • gaius 13y ago
            Correct. Let's see if big corps are so keen truly on merit.
            • the_watcher 13y ago
              They are.
              • gaius 13y ago
                Pay figures suggest otherwise. If someone truly is a) a world-class expert and b) desperately needed, you would see H1B pay outstrip that of locals, and fair enough. But in fact you see that IT wages across the board have been stagnant since the dot-com crash, allowing for inflation. That is pretty strong evidence there is no shortage and may already be a glut.
      • toomuchtodo 13y ago
        I mean no disrespect, but my government's role is to protect its citizens, not perspective immigrants.
        • vinceguidry 13y ago
          Only in your imagination. Government's real role is to protect the people with money. Always has been.
          • toomuchtodo 13y ago
            I'm old, yet not old enough to be that bitter and/or cynical.
            • vinceguidry 13y ago
              I don't consider myself bitter or cynical. Just realistic. Who has the most influence in Washington? What do they use that influence for? In the middle of all that whirlwind of money in Washington, how much mind space do you think they really give to their constituents when it's not an election year? I'm acquainted with a state Senator. He's a well meaning guy, but he acknowledges just what a corrupting effect the truckloads of money has on national politics. I've read that there are over 10,000 pages to Obamacare. Who wrote all that? How much insight into the health care field does it take to put in so much detail? Who else could have possibly written it other than the health care field itself? We talk about regulatory capture like it's some horrific thing akin to Stalinism. But it's reality, today, in every single economic field that's more complex than hairdressing. How could we possibly provide meaningful oversight over the passing of a bill that fills a shelf? The only thing we can do is debate meaningless talking points that don't address the critical reality. Industries are regulating themselves, and we're just letting them frame the discussion while they sell out the public under our very noses.
              • toomuchtodo 13y ago
                The only solution is complete and utter transparency.
      • briancaw2 13y ago
        I would argue it's very unclear if it is in the best interest of everyone else. Immigrants send money home (out of our economy). Companies may produce more/cheaper, resulting in possibly lower prices. But maybe they just spend the extra revenue lobbying Congress for preferential treatment. Maybe it results in more money shipped offshore to tax havens. And if indeed immigrants are just cheaper replacements for their American counterparts, it takes away money (which, remember, is equivalent to speech) from citizens of this country.
    • WalterBright 13y ago
      Preventing the importation of labor is not going to solve the problem. All it does is cause the company to move operations offshore. If that was made illegal, then foreign owned companies would then outcompete domestic companies. I suppose you could then put a tariff wall around the country, but historically that hasn't worked out well (Smoot-Hawley). The thing is, you cannot wish or legislate away the existence of skilled labor from outside the country.
      • gaius 13y ago
        Who said anything about prevention? I said a level playing field.
      • hownottowrite 13y ago
        http://youtu.be/dxPVyieptwA http://youtu.be/dxPVyieptwA
      • zpk 13y ago
        " All it does is cause the company to move operations offshore." If this worked, then we wouldn't be having this visa discussion.
  • coldtea 13y ago
    >Even if it were the case, does it matter? Competition is becoming increasingly globalized. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. Protectionism in the form of onerous immigration regulations is a losing battle and only delays the inevitable. The same can be said of building anything. Towns wither, companies close, empires collapse, etc. "Delaying the inevitable" is what a society is all about. But more importantly, thinking of societal issues as "inevitable" is a regression to the magical pre-political thinking of societies before democracy. There's nothing "inevitable" about how the world works: people, and their actions, make stuff happen or not happen. As for competition becoming "increasingly globalized" is a bad thing, because it is a race to the bottom. It's not even good for countries at the bottom, because it makes their position transient and will turn around to destroy them as soon as they start to rise. What we need to do is build a global middle class and protect middle class where it exists, so that more people can afford products and the economy marches on for more companies and larger endeavours, instead of letting an even smaller number of companies and people profit enormously short term by destroying their future customer base. After all their owners and managers won't be around in 30-50 years, be societies affected by their actions will be.
  • rayiner 13y ago
    Its a losing battle in the long term, but that's doesn't mean its not worth fighting. Yes, the future is reduced standard of living for Americans as the rest of the world catches up technologically and educationally. But we can postpone the inevitable, and reduce the pain by delaying the process while living standards in India and China increase, reducing the disparity in worker expectations.
    • fc2 13y ago
      Why would you want to prevent the rest of the world from catching up to America?
      • Jayschwa 13y ago
        It's interesting how many of the people railing on corporations and the "1 percent" have no problem denying opportunities to people less fortunate than Americans.
        • rayiner 13y ago
          I'm an American. I care about the Americans I see every day walking to work in Philadelphia. Income inequality in the US hurts them. Income inequality between the US and other countries helps them. Very simple.
        • fc2 13y ago
          Yeah, the hypocrisy is astounding.
          • rayiner 13y ago
            It's only hypocritical under the presumption that people care about income inequality simply on its own. But by and large, people care about income inequality for what it does to their communities, their political processes, etc. That rationale for caring about income inequality is entirely consistent with caring about it in the U.S. but not between the U.S. and other countries.
      • 13y ago
  • rbanffy 13y ago
    > Protectionism in the form of onerous immigration regulations is a losing battle So is maximizing profit by replacing expensive workers with less expensive ones from abroad. At some moment the situation becomes untenable, causing a social rupture and eventual reorganization, sometimes very painfully.
  • gte910h 13y ago
    And if it were bilateral, you might have a point. When it's one way...that's just nuts for us, not for the places american's may want to immigrate to.
• polskibus 13y ago
  Surely at least some of the fired could've been retrained and given a second chance? I agree it would be more fair to include also the number of retrained people (ie. that were retrained and saved from being laid off). Unfortunately, the article also fails to mention the demanded immigration levels. Retraining would possibly be more expensive than hiring from abroad speaking short-term, but probably more beneficial to the economy as a whole.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Surely at least some of the fired could've been retrained and given a second chance? Experience has probably shown employers that its cheaper in the long term to just lobby for an immigration-centered subsidy, so they prefer that option.
• ChuckMcM 13y ago
  There is evidence from my remaining friends at Cisco that they are targeting the 'longer tenure / higher paid' segment in their layoffs of 4000 to reduce overall salary costs. Unlike last time when they offered "early retirement" where they acknowledged they got the 'wrong people.' But in fairness, Cisco layoffs are not uncommon. One former employee likened them to a humpback whale, feeding on 'krill headcount' from acquired companies while squeezing the excess out through their baleen filters. Looking at their history suggests that this has some truth to it.
  • hga 13y ago
    HP, at least at the Boise, Idaho printer unit, has reliably been reported to do this, and has even been caught trying to recruit H-1Bs for these jobs Americans won't do....
• zpk 13y ago
  True, but they are related though. Both worlds don't happen in a bubble, eventually the consequences affect all of us here. We have one part of the nation axing millions of people without any intention/need to hire again, and another set saying they are in dire need of employees. Logically the companies would look at the existing labor pool, and try investing in training for the most capable of that set whether its 10% 20% or even 2% of that pool. However none of that is happening. Companies do not want to do that of course, and why would they? The government subsidizes the training through college. The loans are unaffordable, and the returns are not even there for anyone other than the brightest/most capable (however that's scored) 20%. Companies don't care, they aren't on the hook for those costs. Now that that pool is nearly exhausted, companies are lobbying Congress for immigration reform that will bring cheaper younger talent over. Companies assume minimal risk in the current format. And by forcing the # of the visas up, they can suppress wages, there was an article even on IT wages last week about that. This current format is bad for US Citizens, Green Card Holders, and a substantial set of Visa Holders as well.
  • the_watcher 13y ago
    The training for these jobs takes years. Even if companies were to "invest in training" (I'd argue they already do), that wouldn't address their need for workers now.
• will_brown 13y ago
  You are correct there is an unfair assumption in the article of some 1:1 conspiracy of firing 1,000's of Americans with intent to replace them through some as of yet Immigration reform. However, to answer your question, yes there is evidence to suggest companies want to hire immigrants to fill the same jobs that Americans were laid off from. This is a link to a case of first impression (lawsuit) for this kind of discriminant practice, firing Americans for foreign workers, showing American's were kept on board to train their foreign replacements, then fired without cause. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/16/1055249/-Discrimination-Lawsuit-May-Crush-H1-b-Practice-of-Training-Our-Foreign-Replacements# http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/16/1055249/-Discrimina... Ironically, the discovery in the lawsuit tends to show that the foreign workers were more expensive, because more had to be hired to replicate the productivity of the "skilled American workers". More evidence, but a stretch, is the Immigration reform proposed by "the gang of 8" which allowed for the corporate demanded H1-B's but created strict regulations (protections for the American workers before allowing the foreign candidate to be hired; for example the H1-B employee would have to be paid more than their American counter-part), which was opposed by these very same corporations. http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/20/immigration-gang-of-eight-would-make-h-1b-program-unworkable/ http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/20/immigration-gang-of-eigh...