Re: Fw: H-1B/offshoring debate at UCLA

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I am a such a forty something coder who has been given my walking papers
again from a Jewish owned textile company after 2 months three H1b
consultants from India have been here for 7 + months are staying! The
consulting company from India hired me for this all just so the
permanently employed staff can take thier vacations and now that they are
done so was I. Had to wait 30 days for my first pay check from India to
get here and wait another five day's for it to clear all that and still
get left out. This is the fourth time I have been subject to this. I am
so sick of this senario. who the hell do I have to sue to get this ____ to
stop?


There is a underlying agenda it has been the case since the Reagan era and
the undermining of labor unions, The corporate and political powers that
be are turning a free market society into a kingdom without a king! Well
there is one, consisting of many crowns(companies) and many horns(Crooked
politicians and lawmakers & authorities) and many eyes(surveillance)
Hmmmm! where have I heard that before? No I am not a religious fanatic but
the simularites were just too obvieous to ignore.

Alex Montalvo
AS/400 Consultant
1(917)442-5450 Cell

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "SJL" <sjl_abc@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <cpf0000@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, <midrange-jobs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [MIDRANGE-JOBS] Fw: H-1B/offshoring debate at UCLA
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 08:08:32 -0600
>*** Please pay close attention when replying to a message on this list!
>*** If you want the reply to go to the list, use REPLY-TO-ALL
>*** Recruiters may advertise only permanent employment positions in
this list.
>
>
>
>
>All -
>
>Dr. Norman Matloff is a professor of computer science at UC-Davis,
>and is one of the leaders in the fight to keep technical jobs in this
>country - and employ _Americans_ in those jobs...
>
>His opinion (based on much analysis of salary trends in our
>business over the last 7 years) is that companies use H-1B workers
>primarily for cheap labor.
>
>In this debate, Ravi Aron confirms this fact. During the debate,
>globalist Ravi says (see full text in story below):
>
><snip>
>
>Aron: If you're willing to pay enough, supply will meet demand.
>
>Let me add:
>You should not pay that much.
>
>The idea that there exists an exalted class of
>[computer] aristocracy that should be pampered with the salaries
>of their desired level is baloney. We did not do this with
>agricultural or steel workers or bank tellers.
>
></snip>
>
>
>- Steve
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Norm Matloff" <matloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: "Norm Matloff" <matloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:42 AM
>Subject: H-1B/offshoring debate at UCLA
>
>
>To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter
>
>On October 23, IS Associates, an industry affiliates program in the
>UCLA Anderson School of Management, held a panel discussion on the
>future of U.S. IT professionals, given the rise of H-1B and offshoring.
>
>This is one of the few panel discussions I've ever participated in that
>gave everyone a chance to speak in full. Instead of the usual one
hour,
>we actually had three hours (including a break and a Q&A period) in
>which to thoroughly debate the issues. That sounds like hardship for
>both speakers and audience alike, but but the debate was quite lively
>and the audience seemed quite engaged.
>
>Enclosed below is a blog report on the event by Don Tennant, who is
>editor of Computerworld and served as the moderator of the event. He
>posed some excellent questions, and included a couple of small excerpts
>of the ensuing discussion in his blog.
>
>Though Don is correct in stating that much of the debate consisted of
>exchanges between Prof. Ravi Aron and me, it's important to point out
>that there were two other panelists, Jesus Arriaga, Interim CIO of
>Bosley Medical, Inc. and Mitch Stern, Director Human Capital, Deloitte
>Consulting. Mr. Stern, an HR expert, did have quite a bit to say, and
>Mr. Arriaga made some interesting comments as well.
>
>As you will see in his remarks below, Prof. Aron takes the libertarian
>point of view. He admits that the H-1B program is used for cheap labor
>rather than for remedying a labor shortage, and over lunch before the
>event he also admitted that the H-1Bs are mainly brought in so that
>employers can avoid hiring older, i.e. 40+, Americans; indeed, he
>brought this up before I did. (He also mentioned that to prep for the
>debate, he talked to his former colleague at Wharton, Peter Cappelli,
>whose writings on the non-shortage of labor I've often quoted.) He put
>forth the usual argument, spoken with religious fervor and mathematical
>certainty, that purely laissez faire economic policies make the world
>better.
>
>For my part, I stated that I respect the libertarians because at least
>they are honest about issues like this. However, I also stated that I
>believe most people (including those in the audience) aren't
>libertarians. My willingness to participate in forums such as this is
>motivated mainly by a desire to get the facts out in the open; then
each
>listener can apply his own political/economic philosophy to forming his
>stance on the issues.
>
>The nature of the audience, consisting of CIOs, IT managers, IT
>entrepreneurs and the like, made for quite a different type of
>discussion than one usually finds in these forums. They KNOW these
>issues. This is the first such forum I've seen in which NO ONE (if I
>remember correctly) challenged my point that H-1B is about cheap labor
>and replacement of older workers. Even Stern and Arriaga, both of whom
>strongly asserted a tech labor shortage, did not dispute these points,
>and as mentioned, Aron did not dispute them either.
>
>One thing that got a big laugh and repeated references in the
subsequent
>discussion was that I said, "Paraphrasing Shakepeare, I say `First
thing
>we do is kill all the HR people.'" :-) After the event, several people
>told me some of their own favorite horror HR stories. HR people tend
to
>be zealous gatekeepers, a major obstacle to good hiring. Stern, a very
>personable guy, took it good naturedly.
>
>Aron was personable too. Though the discussion got a bit heated at
>times (even with plenty of time to get my points across, I am irritated
>when offered false choices such as "Who would you rather believe on
>H-1B, Paul Krugman or Charless Grassley?"), I look forward to another
>pleasant chat with him when we bump into each other again.
>
>Yet it's clear that Ravi and I are poles apart in, literally, our views
>of the world. It's not just ideology, but also a sense of
>nationality--or lack of one, as the case may be. I get the impression
>that Ravi is a member of a growing class of immigrants to the U.S. who
>consider themselves transnationals, not tied to any particular country.
>Just as many big firms view themselves as multinational (and, according
>to Harvard economist Richard Freeman, even his university thinks of
>itself as multinational), there are now many individuals who have a
>multinational mentality too. The trend has been noticeable enough for
>UC Berkeley anthropologist Aihwa Ong to write a book on it, titled
>Flexible Citizenship.
>
>Before coming to the U.S. for study and later work, Ravi was a
>consultant in Malaysia, and for a while ran a software firm in his
>native India. It wouldn't surprise me if Ravi's next job were to be in
>the UK or China, say. This has to color his views of offshoring and
>H-1B.
>
>His stance on those issues is also presumably impacted by his outside
>consulting work on offshoring, which I'm told has been quite lucrative
>for him. (Speaking of which, one of the people writing comments on Don
>Tennant's blog asserted that I have a "vested interest" against H-1B;
>but it ought to be clear that the status of the H-1B program has no
>substantial impact on me one way or the other.)
>
>By the way, I posited three points that I thought everyone could agree
>on as to the desirability/necessity of keeping a major fraction of this
>profession American. Two are in Don's excerpt below--military work and
>the need for innovation. The third one was the point that whether we
>think the importation of foreign programmers and engineers is good or
>not, they're not going to keep coming here in the future. Tech careers
>in the U.S. are becoming less attractive, due to stagnant wages and a
>roller coaster job market, while jobs in India and China are on the
>upswing. Even Mitch Stern, the HR expert, seemed very concerned when I
>mentioned this. Yet Ravi dismissed it, saying that we (he may have
said
>"you") can grow this labor force internally if things come to that.
>Mitch replied, no, this is not a feasible solution, as it an economy
>takes many years to make such adjustments.
>
>In a somewhat comic twist (whether deliberate or unwitting), all of us
>speakers were presented with special clocks, with a map of the world
and
>24 time zones, perfect for the globalist future. :-) I did notice,
>though, that in order to see the U.S. one needs to hold the clock
upside
>down. :-)
>
>Norm
>
>http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/6482
>
>Matloff vs. Aron on the loss of U.S. IT jobs to non-U.S. workers
>
>By Don Tennant on Mon, 11/05/2007 - 11:39am
>
>A couple of weeks ago I moderated a panel discussion at the fall
meeting of
>the UCLA Anderson School of Management IS Associates. The topic of
>discussion was the future of U.S. IT professionals in a global market,
and
>we focused on offshore outsourcing and the H-1B visa controversy.
>
>Much of the discussion took the form of a debate between Professor
Norman
>Matloff of the University of California at Davis, a long-time vocal
critic
>of the H-1B visa program; and Professor Ravi Aron of the University of
>Southern California Marshall School of Business, an authority on
offshore
>outsourcing.
>
>The following is an exchange between Matloff and Aron, edited for
clarity
>and brevity. It began with Matloff's response to my first question:
>
>Is the premise that there is a shortage of IT workers in the U.S. fact
or
>fiction?
>
>Matloff: You can look at it in terms of salaries a** they're not going
up.
>There was a Business Week study that found that starting salaries for
>computer science and electrical engineering graduates, adjusting for
>inflation, are on the downswing. There is no study, other than those
made by
>the industry, that has established a shortage, even during the dot-com
boom.
>The problem is that people are not willing to hire who's out there, and
>largely it's a matter of money. That, in turn, becomes a matter of age
a**
>older people cost more. They cost more in salary, they cost more in
>benefits. The whole thing about [there being a shortage because of]
baby
>boomers retiring is kind of ludicrous, because almost nobody gets to
>retirement age in this business. After you reach age 40 or even age 35,
you
>find yourself becoming less employable. I'm talking about my specialty,
>which is software development, so everything I said holds to that
group. HR
>doesn't know what to do with that mountain of applications. They vet
people
>out, and the age issue is central a** it's a way to filter out the
older
>people. Eminently qualified people can't even get an interview. It
amounts
>to legalized age discrimination.
>
>Aron: If you're willing to pay enough, supply will meet demand. Let me
add:
>You should not pay that much. The idea that there exists an exalted
class of
>[computer] aristocracy that should be pampered with the salaries of
their
>desired level is baloney. We did not do this with agricultural or steel
>workers or bank tellers. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for
>someone coming into this occupation to feel entitled to an $85,000
salary
>and a bonus. If I can't get it, I find another occupation. The road to
China
>winds through entitlement. No IT worker, now or in the future, can have
an
>entitlement that says, "I have the right to bypass the salary level set
by
>the market because in some way I'm critical to the future of the United
>States." Let the market decide that number. If you find that number
>unacceptable, there are plenty of other things to do.
>
>How important is it to change the perception among young people that an
IT
>job isn't worth pursuing because offshoring and H-1B visas are making
those
>jobs too difficult to attain?
>
>Matloff: You have to ask if this profession is important to us as a
nation,
>as an economy, as a society. There are some real issues there. There's
an
>obvious one: the military, which is very dependent on technology. We
don't
>want to offshore that. Regardless of what you think of the war, you
>obviously don't offshore that kind of stuff. On the other hand, you
can't
>say, "We're going to produce just enough [IT talent] for the military."
It
>doesn't work that way. You have to have a critical mass. Innovation is
>supposed to be our forte in the United States. There's a lot of stuff
that
>we don't do well as a society, but we are creative. And if we offshore
that
>to a place where, on average, people are less creative, we're going to
have
>less innovation and we've lost our comparative advantage. So it's a
negative
>for us as a country, and it's a negative for the business community.
>
>Aron: Is the concern that these people might go be a lawyer or an MBA?
So go
>be a lawyer or an MBA. What's the big deal? If you can find a good MBA
>program that will take you, go and be an MBA. You will do useful work;
you
>will add to the wealth and efficiency of the corporation. The military
needs
>steel. They need mechanical engineers, metallurgical scientists, all of
>which can be offshored. Have we lost our innovation? Today, the gap
between
>the United States and the rest of the world in terms of value-bearing
>patents a** patents that actually make money a** is increasing, not
decreasing.
>Who are America's chief competitors? Germany and Japan, not the
low-cost
>manufacturing economies of China and India. Design and innovate in
America;
>develop and deliver in the CPI countries [China, the Philippines and
India].
>That is the formula for making money and staying innovative. Not
protected
>by America, for Americans. If people want to leave [the IT profession]
and
>go become lawyers, let them become lawyers. Nothing will stop them from
>being innovative, creative, and adding to the wealth of this country.
>
>Why not recognize a good thing when you see it? Why do people have to
go
>through these [H-1B] procedures? Why have procedures that [cause people
to
>look for] painful ways of skirting them? Why don't they simply say, "If
>you've got a Masters degree and Goldman Sachs wants to employ you, come
on
>over?" If they're good enough for Goldman Sachs, they're good enough
for the
>Unites States.
>
>Matloff: The implicit theme of your argument is that these engineers
and
>programmers are smart people, and we need more smart people. Well first
>of all, they're not necessarily all that smart a** anybody here who's
been
>an IT manager knows that. They've been burned many times. No. 2, and
>much more importantly, is the issue that that influx is causing an
>internal brain drain. Innovative people are leaving the field, and I
>know many, many cases of that. I don't think anyone, including Ravi ,
is
>going to say it's a good thing when you have bright people not going
>into something where they really have talent. They're going into
>something that they don't like and where maybe they don't have talent.
>Let them become a lawyer? Well, maybe they're not going to be as good a
>lawyer as they would have been a software engineer.
>
>Aron: I'm not at all saying that you should bring these people in
because
>they're smart. I couldn't care less whether they're smart or not. If
they
>are pumpkin farmers, and it turns out there's an economic viability and
they
>can find a market for it and they can make money, I say bring them in.
I am
>completely agnostic about their intellectual prowess. And if people
become
>lawyers and they find they're not very good at it, fine a** find
something
>else to do. As I discovered when I was 18 years old that it was not
likely I
>was going to make it in a career as a rock guitarist, you will discover
that
>there are other things to do.
>
>Will it mean that some people will not go into IT as a career?
Absolutely.
>So what? Will it mean that some talented, bright folks will move from
IT
>into financial services as they're now doing? Yeah, of course. So what?
That
>is the strength of the U.S.: Constantly reallocate people and talent
where
>it is most rewarded. We do not want to be North Korea.
>
>Can we do without the H1-B program? If you're willing to pay enough,
>certainly. I don't think that's a good idea. Can America's driving
needs be
>met without Japanese cars? Of course. Can our photographic needs be met
>without Japanese cameras? Without doubt. But the consequences would be
>catastrophic. For sure, we can do without H1-B. For sure, we can do
without
>Japanese cars.
>
>
>--
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