Re: Bill Gates and the H-1B Visa, Chapters 1 and 2

SJL wrote:

Joe Pluta wrote:

By using that pool to deflate costs, MS (and any other
company that abuses the H-1B laws) is profiting by what
they are not paying American workers.

Joe -

You made a slight technical error with your statement above - one commonly made by our media, but more importantly our lawmakers. I know that you know the truth about what I'm writing below, but those who read what you wrote above may interpret it the wrong way, so I'm going to correct you.

<snip>

I repeat, there is NOTHING in the H-1B law that requires employers to give preference to American workers...

2) The 'prevailing wage' provision of the H-1B law is also easily (and usually) exploited by simply changing the title of the person's job from something like 'software engineer' to 'systems analyst', thus allowing the employer to legally pay substantially lower wages to the H-1B worker. The law also allows the employer to do the salary survey to establish the 'prevailing wage'.

This is why the H-1B guest workers are so cheap...employers don't have to pay 'Market' salaries...

Thanks, Steve. I actually wasn't even touching that particular piece of the argument, I was simply assuming that we all now know that H-1B workers get paid less than the same American workers, and that because of that the prevailing wage drops, and so students don't want to get into the field, and thus the H-1B advocates can point to the falling enrollment as evidence that they need more guest workers.

I forget that some people actually still think that the H-1B process has real safeguards in place, although I think that if nothing else we've disproven that theory to the folks on this list. But I could be wrong; let's ask! Show of hands: do you think H-1B workers make MORE or LESS than the workers they displace?

Joe