Last week, Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter to Microsoft CEO Ballmer showing concern over how the company goes about laying off employees in the shadow of their disappointing $22B profit for 2008. Grassley also asked Microsoft to keep track of how many H1B, other visa and American workers are cut. He stopped short of saying that Microsoft must lay off foreign workers first. Friday, 1400 workers were laid off.
My question is: Why haven't politicians in this country insisted that American workers are given preference over H-1B or other work-visa-program workers? The majority of other countries in the world do this. For the last 30 years we have seen a huge influx of foreign workers, brought in by companies like Microsoft, under the guise that "America does not have enough engineers to do the job." But it hasn't really been about an available work force; it has always been about money - foreign workers cost less. I saw this first hand when I worked for a Canadian company in Dallas: American employees were laid off, Canadian employees were retained and citizens from India and China were hired.
Unemployment is approaching 8% in this country. A lot of those unemployed are engineers. (I would imagine some of the 1400 workers laid off were Americans as well.) Outsourcing and off-shoring software and technology development has been lauded by American companies as they manage their companies to stock price and look for ever more ways to increase the bottom line.
There is no reason why in 2009, that Americans are out of work while non-American citizens are employed on United States soil. This is not about Xenophobia, it's about practicality and doing what the rest of the world does already.
Perhaps the blind adherence to insisting that the stock price truly reflects, in any way, the real health of a company is outdated and causes too much in the way of knee-jerk reactions.
One a share is sold by the company it no longer is truly tied to it. The third-market world of stock trading gives false value and artificial life to this paper.
Running a company to keep up stock pretenses is only applicable when the company is selling shares to raise R & D dollars. Otherwise it is foolish to believe that the market in any way can place a value on what a company does.
Microsoft is illegally running their business with this practice. It’s full of this kind of corruption.
It’s time for Americans of good will to come together in these hard economic times and bring the weight of the government down on Microsoft. Support legislators who share your values on this.
I will bet that the H1Bs are not cut because the companies can not cut the Indians. To hire them, they had to provide contracts with their home countries. So cutting Indians, or Europeans, for that matter is almost impossible. Corporate America must cannibilize their own to keep the politician’s deals sacrosanct.
My friend’s in high tech are always telling me that their bosses threaten them that they could be replaced by 3 Indians. Of course, it would take 3 Indians to accomplish the work that one over stressed American engineer produces in their 80 hour week. And, don’t forget that they don’t work at the same time (zone) that we do. So all meetings have to be held after American hours.
We really need to be the bad ass Americans that everyone says we are and tell them to play by our rules if they want our money.
It amazes me that our “captains of industry” have yet to figure out that, if people are not working, they cannot buy products. Of course, these are the same people that only worry about the next few quarters and leave the long range, 5-10 year, planning to the Japanese.
The majority of other countries in the world do give preference to their native workers ???
Where did you get that ?
It’s even worse in European countries…
JCVD, Belgium
I have stratagized several of these layoffs over the years as head of HR in a high tech firm of 10k employees. The general rule of thumb when selecting who is let go is by job performance. It is an opportunity to eliminate the poorest performers first.
This issue needs to be kept in the public eye. Nationals and resident aliens, with their higher incomes contribute more to the structure that is a nation, and expatriate far less money to other countries, an issue to which attention is is rarely paid. In my opinion nationals and legal resident aliens should always have preference over H1B visa holders for employment.
As far as contracts go, US Immigration laws, lax as they are, do make provision for repatriation if the sponsoring company terminates employment. Any private contract with commitments of fixed residency terms, are therefore in contravention, and probably subject to severe federal penalties if discovered. Certainly contracts between companies and foreign governments committing to US immigration and residency terms are a no no.
I agree with the article – using H1B labor is all about the flow of money to the few, and should be more tightly legislated along with laws governing expatriating corporate treasures offshore to evade paying the taxes that sustain this magnificent country.
The leadership of US corporate boards has created all of the foregoing issues. And with their blatant and deliberate impoverishment of our nation through the biased globalization project, casts a shadow of deep doubt over their real personal patriotism.
Referring to watchin’s comment – I also worked with a strategic RIF team for a Fortune 100 company of 150K + employees. Performance was indeed discussed in the early meetings. Then, as the team moved to selecting the RIF candidates, individual performance was quickly overshadowed by “Bell-shaped curve” concerns, discrimination implications, inter BU political issues, budget containment opportunities, and fears of loss of empire, to name but a few of the non-performance issues that ultimately shaped the hit list.
Doesn’t this have anything to do with people’s capabilities?
If that person from India or China isn’t performing then for sure he/she will see a pink slip the next day.
That depends on the State in which the employer is incorporated, the administrative burden of processing an H1B out of the enterprise and the country, and all the other influences I mentioned. Finally, the quality of employee performance assessment factors in as well; most US companies have only very rudimentary, and subjective, performance management processes. So they are unable to even objectively measure individual employee performance.
In reply to Pieter: More Legislation is NOT the answer!! There is too much Government interference in the Free Market as it is. If the Corporate Tax Rate were cut in half, instead of being 35% (the second highest in the world) these Companies would not have to go through all these gymnastics to avoid taxation, and they would be hiring more Americans. Governemnt is the Problem, NOT the Solution.
Since where did Microsoft ever really give a damn about the common man, not since Gates left the garage. And he is not alone, there are all the major companies who look to profit first and customer service second.
Wow! what a silly article! Have you, perhaps, put into consideration that ‘foreign’ workers most times have great qualifications and knowledge of the job that Americans don’t have? Please try to be more objective and constructive in what you write!
Tony,
Maybe you should consult a dictionary and try to understand the meaning of “objective”. Once you have achieved that you can have a go at familiarizing yourself with the word “constructive”. Then you can reorient what you read in the foregoing exchange and participate with the adults in the interchange of ideas.