American Employers Intentionally Screwing American Workers

This is something that should make you oh, so proud, to be American. NOT.

According to the lawyer on this video, "Our goal is to NOT find a qualified or interested American worker so we can get the foreigner a green card".

This streaming video shows one big reason why qualified Americans can be unemployed for years, until they give up trying to find a job at all, in fact. In the meanwhile, these employers are hiring H-1B foreigners and paying them, on average, 20% less than a similarly qualified US worker. According to my sources, Lou Dobbs investigated this streaming video and presented a story about it this afternoon on CNN. [4:50]

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I remember when the court system in RI decided to go with ACS Court Connect all the vendor reps were H1B's.

This video depicts an all too common scenario in corporate recruiting practices. That is, qualified and sincere American job seekers are lured into a shell game that has been set up for the sole purpose of securing green cards for H-1B visa holders who often are already working for the employers who place these fraudulent job advertisements. The outcomes of these exercises are always pre-determined and the unsuspecting Americans have no chance of success.

This not only happens to American IT workers. It also happens to American accountants, financial analysts, and even Biotech specialists.

As a Human Resources professional, I see first hand how the H-1B visa and employment based green card programs actually work together to drive U.S. white collar workers from their jobs and even from their careers. To begin with, there is virtually nothing in the law that prevents employers from hiring H-1Bers for open positions even if qualified Americans are available and willing to do the work. Americans are routinely laid off and replaced with lower paid H-1Bers also. In these cases, Americans have practically no legal recourse available under current law.

H-1B is also a dual intent visa, so an employer may sponsor an H-1Ber for an EB green card for legal permanent resident status. When a company seeks to sponsor a foreign worker for an EB green card, they are required by law to demonstrate a good faith effort to recruit Americans first. This process is called labor certification. But employers routinely game the labor certification process for green card sponsorship to defraud even well qualified citizen job applicants in favor of low wage foreigners. They use fake job ads and/or bad faith interviews of American citizens to convince the federal government that they tried to find American workers first.

The bad faith interviews deserve special mention. Americans who make it to this stage are turned down and usually given vague reasons for the rejection. One of the most common reasons given is that the American was a "bad fit for the company culture". These practices are common in high tech and even in a growing number of non-tech industries, but HR people are told to keep quiet about it or lose their jobs.
I would be in favor of a program that issues a small number of self-sponsoring green cards for truly innovative foreign nationals on a competitive basis. But very few of the H-1Bers or green card applicants that I have seen in over 10 years even come close to being truly innovative. Most are just practitioners with skills that are actually quite common among the domestic workforce. The only thing special about these foreigners is that they will work for substantially less than Americans in order to have a chance to become legal permanent residents. Thus they are used by management to sweeten corporate balance sheets.

The prevailing wage regulations are supposed to insure that foreign nationals are paid the same as their American counterparts in the same job functions, but these regulations are so riddled with loopholes that they are a bad joke.

Since my work allows me to have access to salary records, I can tell you that the labor cost savings for H-1Bers and green card applicants is substantially greater than the costs of filing the applications with the government.

Citizens should demand that both the H-1B and employment based green card programs be abolished in their current form.

By Human Resources Rep (not verified) on 19 Jun 2007 #permalink

Maybe may not be US practice, but in the UK a lot of jobs are advertised because the law requires it even though the company already knows who will get the job.

This is very annoying as you've no idea if the time you spend on interviews isn't just a waste of your time. In my experience, the worst offenders are the oil majors though I have been told that the same thing happens in other industries.

I first came across it years ago; I noticed a position advertised in the local rag and was suprised as I knew the job and knew who was filling it. I mentioned it to her, she laughed and explained that the company was going through the motions to meet legal requirements before making her staff. No suprise she got converted from contractor to staff and kept her job.

As she was really good at the job it made sense for the company to keep her but how much money was wasted and how many people had their hopes raised and time wasted?

Last year, that same company was advertising so I fired off my CV. When they called to ask me to go to Ireland for an interview I did ask if the position was already assigned, the guy said he'ld get back to me to confirm bookings and never did. Did I miss a golden opportunity with that company? I don't think so as over 90% of their positions are filled internally.

Oh yes, they're also playing the "can't find suitable native workers" card as well.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 19 Jun 2007 #permalink

Does anyone have a link to the Lou Dobbs/CNN coverage of this? A quick search didn't turn up anything.

Chris, I can confirm that a similar practice of advertising for a job already filled by the only acceptable "applicant" does happen in the USA. I know of a case--this was before Hong Kong was returned to the bigger of the two Chinas--of a very skilled engineer from Hong Kong who wanted to stay, the company (and co-workers) wanted to keep, and who also wanted an "escape route" to avoid having to return to that China. So a very carefully crafted recruitment ad was placed, and the process started... It worked, there were no other suitably qualified applicants, blah blah blah.

Just in case anyone wants to keep a copy of this there is a free YouTube converter at http://vixy.net/ as I guess that this might be pulled if the speakers object.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 20 Jun 2007 #permalink

This has been going on for a least 30 years. (One friend whose visa was running out got posted to a particularly arcane position by his US employer pretty much specifically so that he would have a set of experience and qualifications that couldn't be matched by other candidates.)

It's not a bad thing per se; what's bad about it is the salary differential, which not only leaves US workers unemployed but also pushes down the wages that the employed ones can fight for.

However, I'm not sure that ending the visa program will be more than a band-aid, since more than one American corporation has opened offices overseas to get around the visa issue.
It's true, most companies prefer to hire internally. I have to go through hoops to advertise a position externally. Often what happens is a contractor is hired, since we have worked with them, and know their work. Many times we know who we want for the job, they want it too, but we have to advertise first. Then we spend a lot of time interviewing a few people (just in case), sending out a lot of "sorry" letters, then finally hiring that person.

I can only speak for IT. But frankly - there is just not enough qualified IT people to go around in this country. When in a position of hiring - I get dozens if not hundreds of resumes (depends on the position) of completely unqualified people or for the few people that may be qualified we are talking high pay requirements. And I am not talking 40 or 50k a year - we are talking 100k to 150k. So what am we going to do? Contract it out to a body shop. The works get done and we save money for our shareholders.

Personally I have a hard time feeling sorry for the IT industry which enjoys higher salaries and quality of life than most other industries.

For the record - I am back to being a contractor again and there is -no- shortage of work out there for people who spend 5 minutes marketing themselves (ya know - like talking to other people).

..For the record - I am back to being a contractor again and there is -no- shortage of work out there for people who spend 5 minutes marketing themselves (ya know - like talking to other people).
Posted by: yoshi

I do hope that you aren't one of those rate cutters who are ruining it for us long term contractors.
We get the rates up to a decent level and then cheapo staffers jump ship to make a quick buck by undercutting existing contractors.

The main problem is that you, and many western companies, are thinking short term. In the long term paying peanuts gets you monkeys and shafting your fellow citizens isn't sensible either. In India many companies are more into the long term view and developing loyal staff rather than always going for the cheapest option.

I probably shouldn't complain as most of my recent business has been fixing errors made by companies going for the cheap option; but it does annoy me when managers pay themselves millions but never think beyond the next quarters figures.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 21 Jun 2007 #permalink