Posted on 03/17/2015 6:26:49 AM PDT by iowamark
You've spent twenty plus years loyally working in Information Technology (IT) for Southern California Edison, and eighteen months ago your boss tells you that they are going to study outsourcing but not to worry, "your position is safe." On the one hand you are worried because you know many stories of American IT workers losing their jobs to outsourcing, but on the other you feel comforted that you've been loyal to SCE and provide a critical service. Then eight months ago they tell you that they are outsourcing most IT functions and that they want you, get this, to train your guestworker replacement. If you say no, SCE will terminate you with cause and you would lose not only a severance package but also eligibility for unemployment insurance. This is the common story I heard from many workers at SCE.
The work that the 400 SCE IT employees do isn't disappearing, instead it and their jobs are being taken over by foreign guestworkers here on H-1B visas. Those guestworkers are employed by the two leading India-based outsourcing firms, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys...
H-1B visas are temporary work permits issued by the U.S. government that are good for up to six years. The intent is for these visas to be used only when an American worker cannot be found. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor states, "The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that the hiring of a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed.”..
And the CEO will happily train his replacement, one might bet.
Business always works to become more lean and to cut expenses. The first place to cut inefficiency is the human labor that is involved in each process. If a work is done by human labor and can be automated then it will be automated in every case. Either an electro-mechanical device or a software program can replace human labor in almost every occupation. At some point human beings will not be as efficient as the devices used to automate the workplace. Any remaining inefficiency will be in tweaking the electromechanical device or the software. Some people will work but billions of people will have no place to work. I do not know if this will actually happen or when. If this scenario does happen then these people will be abused in some way.
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Let me see if I understand this ridiculous and out-of-control HB situation correctly: We import highly-skilled technical workers mainly from such Asian countries like India, China, Taiwan, Pakistan. and South Korea so that we can compete in the world market with highly-skilled scientists and technicians in Asian countries like India, China,Taiwan, Pakistan and South Korea. it makes no sense.
My question is this: If the best and the brightest scientists and technical workers in India,China, Taiwan, Pakistan, and South Korea remain in their countries, then what level of workers is the United States importing from those Asian countries?
Such distorted logic and reasoning on the part of American technical firms like Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook makes no sense.
Have these greedy technical companies forgotten that America was made great by such programs like apprentice programs and internships? How do these technical companies think that American plumbers,electricians, and air-conditioning technicians learned their skills: Through apprentice programs.
We should encourage, maybe even demand, that technical companies like Microsoft, Apple, and FaceBooke develop strong apprentice and intern programs so that they wouldn't have to depend so much on HB technical workers from India, China, Taiwan, Pakistan, and South Korea.
I believe that the HB program should be immediately and drastically reduced or abolished completely.
My point is this: The HB program has done more harm than good in developing of technical skills among future American young people. The HB program is slowly destroying rather than helping America's ability to compete in the global market.
The severe problem of getting American young people to pursue technical skills goes something like this:
1. Schools throughout the country are working hard to encourage young people to enter the technical fields like working with computers.
2. Many young Americans are enthusiastic about entering the good-paying technical field.
3. But these same students look around and see that they have to compete not only with their fellow Americans but with technical workers imported from foreign countries, mostly Asian countries---for instance, you don't see a flood of HB workers coming from,say, Spain and England.
4. So what do these bright students end up doing? They become discouraged. They give up on their dreams to entire the fast growing amd good-paying technical field, and so they decide to go into some line of easier work where they don't have to compete with foreign technical workers.
5. Then what happens? What happens is that the United States demand for technical workers ends up caught in a vicious circle.
6. The vicious circle goes something like this: Now that more and more smart American students are discouraged from pursuing studies in the scientific and technical fields by such horrible self-defeating programs like the HB program, American companies claim that they can't find enough skilled American workers to meet their increasing demand for skilled technical workers.
7. So, argue American companies, they have no choice but to beg Congress to allow them to import more and more foreign technical workers from such Asian countries as India, China, Taiwan,Pakistan and South Korea so that they can compete on the global market with the highly skilled technical workers in Asian countries like India, China, Taiwan, Pakistan, and South Korea. Huh? Am I missing something here?
8. And round-and-round we go with no end in sight to this terrible, self-defeating HB foreign workers problem.
9. Meanwhile, executives at technical and rich companies like Microsoft , Apple, and FaceBook run all the way to the bank to deposit all the money they saved by bypassing highly-qualified American technical workers for foreign HB workers.
10. Yes. Let's drastically reduce or abolish the HB foreign workers program so that we can give American youths the chance to develop the technical skills that America will need for a long, long time.
What does automation have to do with outsourcing and off shoring?
In my experience, H1Bs and ‘offshore’ workers are an absolute disaster to anyone who wants to actually have an IT department that actually works. Even “experienced” H1Bs are worse for business than just hiring random people off the street.
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