RE: AS/400 Lobby

>There are WAY too many special programs being given away to illegal
immigrants.


I ran an opinion piece in Midrange Computing about a year and a half ago about
H1Bs and was called upon by a guy who was working for JD Edwards.  I'd done a
lot of research on H1Bs before I penned the piece, but nevertheless I touched a
nerve with this gentleman.  He was in the US on an H1B and had a lot of
clarification to make.  First of all, at the time he was writing, an applicant
for an H1B had to  have a job waiting for him by an employer before his
application would be accepted.  Secondly, the wages paid by that employer had to
be at the market level.  That meant, as far as he was concerned, he was
recruited at a compensation level that matched what other AS/400 programmers
were making in this country by a particular company itself.  Secondly, he
pointed out that H1Bs are provided for professional workers in a large variety
of fields -- including chefs, doctors, and teachers --  though the big lobbying
effort to expand the H1B numbers was coming from the IT industry.  Thirdly --
and the point directed to the quote above -- H1Bs are not illegals, are not
stereo-typical greencarded immigrants, and pay substantially in taxes with great
personal sacrifice to take these positions They are in no way dweebs looking for
a handout.  In his case, he had attended college in the US and considered
himself as patriotic and hardworking as anyone else.  His intention to stay in
the US was for the period of time identified by his visa.  If he chose to stay
longer, he'd apply for citizenship (not a trivial enterprise in and of itself.)
We exchanged quite a few emails on the subject before I left Midrange Computing,
and I must admit that his arguments were convincing.  First, if we don't want
globalization to take away our jobs, we've got to maintain the hot-center that
currently is represented in the job market.  That means round up enough talent
to fuel the IT economy and infrastructure.  Secondly, if we want to increase our
individual value in the market, we have to do more than form guilds and
obstacles to keeping new talent out.  The biggest problem with the AS/400
programming community is not the lack of talent, but the lack of marketing of
the unique AS/400 platform by IBM to new customers, creating new job
opportunities for newly educated programmers.  Finally, the level of diversity
that is required in the high-tech industry today is essential -- and should
increase -- if we're going to keep US IT professionals competitive.  Look at
where IBM's language-labs are located: in Canada.  Who are developing these
languages?  A great many of them are programmers who came to Canada from other
countries.  Claus Wiess, who is project leader for VA RPG, was from Germany I
think.  His project teammates were a broad spectrum of foriegn nationals who had
made Toronto their home.  Throughout the labs in Toronto you find the same story
again and again: brilliant talent looking for brilliant projects, crossing
frontiers to find them.  This is not a process that I personally would want to
inhibit, even if I could.

What is an adequate wage for IT pgming work?  Is it 40 K? 50K? 100K? 200K?
Would you want some external agency to police the wages of IT professionals?
Keeping certain individuals out?  Allowing special individuals in?  Who would it
be?  Men only?  Whites?  Middle-aged?  Over 40? People who knew RPG?  Maybe ILE
RPG only?  Where would each of us fit in that hierarchy?  Maybe we might each
stand up in our individual cubicles and look over the partitions at our
neighbors.  What's really important is what we are contributing, and how this
contribution is being acknowledged by our organizations.

After that, maybe we could address the issue of lobbying against corporate
welfare -- IT industrial organizations that use the bottom line to escape their
social responsibilities to the communities in which they operate.   If we get
that one right, we'll probably not be too concerned with how many people of
which nationality are in the communities where these large organizations employ
us.



Tom Stockwell

tstockwell@dhagroup.com


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