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

Hi Buck,

If I could prove that I'm worth more than I'm paid, then perhaps my job would be safe. The trick is that expenses (payroll) are easy to see, the return I provide isn't.

This is so true. Companies who make contracts with outsourcers beware, technical expertise is often not the most valuable expertise. There are some IT Directors, like where I work, who recognize specific company experience, for example. One programmer where I work recently retired, but stayed on as part-time. The IT Director said three days a week from her beats five days from anybody else new, and she had the job for as long as she wanted it and he had any say-so.

One question is there a way to negotiate a contract without being fooled as to length of the project?

The contract should stipulate the term. If the employer terminates
early, they are in breach of contract. --buck

We often hear lawyers chiding us for seeing one after the fact. This is one of those occasions. (Of course if we all got lawyers to look over our contracts before we signed them, we'd all be needing bankruptcy lawyers!) It might not be too expensive to have one simply look it over, could somebody enlighten us on this?

Some might have the personality, temperament, and inclination, one could represent himself. I think John Brandt is one who had won some contract issues.

I support free trade, but most "free trade agreements" are not truly free trade.

For example, maybe it's not if it gives equal footing to (1)a company owned by the PLA ("The Chinese People's Liberation Army", so-called) using, among other government-control advantages, prison camp labor (as proven by Harry Wu, author of "The Troublemaker"), (2)with privately-owned companies with thousands of government-imposed restrictions on its labor practices, manufacturing methods, licensing requirements (at four levels of government), zoning laws, three federal agencies, one of which had several truckloads (the biggest Mack truck kind) of papers covering OSHA regulations), departments of lawyers who must defend against lawsuits, and so on.

Which is not even "free trade" within a country with such structures, for the simple fact that such burdens weigh more heavily on the smaller businesses and startups. And cheap political ploys like government "help" for smaller companies, like was promised with the 1992 "Hellary-care" plan, are more control strings).

But when things were a lot more free in President Hoover's day, when Hoover was president, protectionist trade measures sent the economy into a tailspin, provided an excuse for still more harmful government interference in the economy, and more control over our lives. And lost us a lot of jobs.

H1B's are not "free trade", it's more like controlled contract labor, controlled by national differentials, in great part artificially maintained.

For example, the only gold-backed currency in the world is the euro-unit.
(Raise your hand if you don't think that's a coincidence)

--Alan