Top 10 users of H-1B guest worker
program are offshore outsourcing firms
By RON HIRA
The H-1B ‘non-immigrant’ tempo-
rary foreign guest worker program is
called a valuable tool for employers to
attract and retain the “best and bright-
est” immigrants in the science, technol-
ogy, engineering, and math fields. Be-
cause employers may petition for
permanent residence for their H-1B em-
ployees, the visa is sometimes de-
scribed as a “bridge to immigration”
that will keep the smartest foreign
STEM workers in the U.S. permanently
and thus improve the nation’s competi-
tiveness.
In part, that’s how senators Orin
Hatch (R-Utah), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.),
Chris Coons (R-Del.), and Amy
Klobuchar (D-Minn.), explain their new
bill — known as the “I-Squared Act” —
that would more than quadruple the size
of the H-1B program (to 300,000).
[The U.S. currently makes 85,000
H-1B visas available annually, but more
can be approved for operations with ex-
emptions, such as universities and non-
profit research organizations. In fiscal
year 2012, for instance, 134,780 H-1B
petition requests were approved.]
However, for the biggest users of the
Fishing derby for Guide Dogs May 4
The third annual Salmon Fishing Derby will be held Saturday, May 4, on the
docks at RiverPlace Marina, behind the RiverPlace Hotel in downtown Portland.
The event, sponsored by Machinists District W24, is a fundraiser for Guide
Dogs of America (GDA).
The International Association of Machinists founded GDA in 1948 in Syl-
mar, California, to train and provide guide dogs to the blind, free of charge. The
organization receives no government funding. To breed, raise and train one
guide dog costs $38,000.
In two years, the Machinists District W24 derby has raised $24,000.
Entry is $200 per person, with a limit of four anglers per boat. Boats are
staffed with professional fishing guides. This year a limited number of anglers
can use their own boats. Registration is $100 per angler.
Prizes are awarded for biggest fish and most fish landed. Following the derby
there will be a luncheon and raffle.
The deadline to register is April 5.
Sponsorship space also is available, ranging from $100 for a Bronze sponsor
all the way to $1,500 for a Diamond sponsor.
For more information or to register, go to www.iamw24.org or email com-
municator@iamw24.org.
program, this view is false: In 2012, the
10 employers receiving the largest num-
ber of H-1B visas were all in the busi-
ness of outsourcing and offshoring
high-tech American jobs. Many of the
jobs that went to H-1B workers should
have instead gone to U.S. workers, but
employers are not required to recruit
them before applying for an H-1B, and
can even replace their U.S. workers
with H-1Bs.
The top 10 H-1B employers were
granted an astonishing 40,170 visas;
nearly half the total annual quota. There
are two reasons these firms hire H-1Bs
instead of Americans: 1) an H-1B
worker can legally be paid less than a
U.S. worker in the same occupation and
locality;
2) the H-1B worker learns the job
and then rotates back to the home coun-
try and takes the work with him. That’s
why the H-1B was dubbed the “Out-
sourcing Visa” by the former Com-
merce Minister of India, Kamal Nath.
Rather than keeping jobs from leav-
ing our shores, the H-1B does the op-
posite, by facilitating offshoring and
providing employers with cheap, tem-
porary labor — while reducing job op-
portunities for American high-tech
workers in the process.
The I-Squared Act does nothing to
protect against this, while vastly ex-
panding the size of a deeply flawed pro-
gram that accelerates the offshoring of
American high-tech jobs and reduces
America’s future capacity to innovate.
H-1B visa approvals
Company
Cognizant
Tata
Infosys
Wipro
Accenture
HCL America
Mahindra Group
(incl Satyam)
IBM
Larsen & Toubro
Deloitte
2012
9281
7469
5600
4304
4037
2070
2011
5095
1659
3360
2803
1304
930
1963
1846
1832
1668
404
987
1156
798
Employers with the most new H-1B
visa application approvals in fiscal year
2012. Source: Computerworld analysis
of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Service data. Some company divisions
were combined, such as IBM Corp. and
IBM India, Tata consulting and engi-
neering groups, etc.
(Editor’s Note: Ron Hira is a re-
search associate for the Economic Pol-
icy Institute.)
...Immigration reform links labor, U.S. Chamber
(From Page 1)
1. An independent commission to
assess and manage future immigration,
based on labor market shortages that are
determined on the basis of actual need;
2. A secure and effective worker au-
thorization mechanism;
3. Rational operational control of the
border;
4. Adjustment of status for the cur-
rent undocumented population; and
5. Improvement, not expansion, of
temporary worker programs.
Bearing those principles in mind, la-
bor leaders met with representatives of
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Jan-
uary and February to discuss how to fix
immigration in a way that benefits both
workers and employers, with a focus on
less-skilled occupations. “American
workers should have a first crack at
available jobs,” said U.S. Chamber of
Commerce President Thomas Donohue
and AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka in their Feb. 21 joint statement.
But in instances when employers are
not able to fill job openings with Amer-
ican workers, they said, businesses
should be able to hire foreign workers
while fully protecting the wages and
working conditions of U.S. and immi-
grant workers.
“Among other things, this requires a
new kind of worker visa program that
does not keep all workers in a perma-
nent temporary status, provides labor
mobility in a way that still gives Amer-
ican workers a first shot at available
$17 a month coverage
includes:
jobs, and that automatically adjusts as
the American economy expands and
contracts,” the joint statement said.
On Feb. 19, the Oregon AFL-CIO
held a press conference outside the U.S.
immigration office in Northwest Port-
land. As a show of unity, Oregon AFL-
CIO President Tom Chamberlain stood
alongside Francisco Lopez of the im-
migrant rights group CAUSA, Brenda
Mendoza of the farmworker advocacy
group PCUN, and Hugo Nicolas, an un-
documented immigrant from Mexico
who was brought by his parents to the
United States at age 11. Chamberlain
said the Oregon labor movement has
spent the last 18 months building rela-
tionships with immigrants rights organ-
izations.
“Immigration reform is a family is-
sue, it’s a workers issue, and it’s an
American issue,” Chamberlain said.
“We are not a nation that treats people
as second class citizens. We’re not a na-
tion that allows an immigration policy
that allows for the exploitation of work-
ers. That’s not what this country’s
about.”
On March 5, the Oregon AFL-CIO
Executive Board will consider a resolu-
tion calling on Congress to pass “com-
mon-sense immigration reform” re-
flecting the AFL-CIO and Change to
Win federation joint principles, and
committing the Oregon AFL-CIO to
communicate that position to Oregon’s
congressional delegation.
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