Time to Kill The Immigration Bill

As expected, the Senate betrayed workers everywhere and passed the corporate cheap labor laden immigration bill and now lobbyists are pushing it to pass the House before voters can react in 2014.  America's workers only hope now lies with Republicans, not exactly known for their labor friendly agenda.  The situation is bleak.  Even the AFL-CIO has sold out U.S. technical workers as well as low wage workers and endorsed the Senate bill.

The cheap labor agenda is wrapped in a pack of come out of the shadows and legal status for the millions here illegally.  Yet if one reads the bill, it is much more about globalization and labor arbitrage of the U.S. worker.  Lobbyists and Congress simply uses illegals to pass their real agenda, which is corporate demanded cheap labor.  The undocumented are in fact getting quite the raw deal.  It would take at least 13 years to obtain citizenship and during that period, they become guest workers. It is estimated that 1.6 million additional foreign guest workers will be added to the labor force in the first year alone if S.744 is passed.  That is close to the total jobs created in the U.S. each year.

Not a single Democrat voted against the bill, a incredible sell-out, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.  The excuses from these Senators is laughable.  Youth unemployment gets $1.5 billion, assisting 400,000 to find jobs, while the Senate just flooded the labor market with 35 million more workers over the next decade.  Senators carve out minor token amendments to justify their vote even though thousands of their state residents have been displaced by foreign guest workers.

Even Bloomberg is acknowledging corporations got all of their cheap labor agenda through the Senate.  One of the more notorious tricks has already been named the Facebook Loophole.  In essence, this loophole makes it perfectly legal to fire U.S. workers and replace them with foreign guest workers.  All corporations have to do is file a claim they intend on sponsoring their imported labor for green cards.  The bill tripled H-1B Visas, way more than the number of jobs gained per year.

While there is hope the bill is blocked in the House, the corporate lobbyists are on the March.  Contained within the bill is an unlimited supply of cheap foreign labor for these industries and as anyone has seen in D.C., corporations are the only ones who get laws and agendas they want.

The lobbyist pressure is on, all claiming Republicans will lose elections if they do not pass this guest worker laden bill.  Corporate lobbyists are in fact behind the lies and do they care about the undocumented?  Of course not, these corporations are all about controlling global migration, wages and workers.

Microsoft and Facebook are demanding more H-1B Visas and other tech Visas, even though there is no tech worker shortage.  The lies coming from these corporations are so extreme, even CNBC and other mainstream Wall Street press called the lie out.  To be clear, there is no tech worker shortage.  We analyzed the National Science Foundation statistics and showed the U.S. has way more skilled workers now than can be employed   EPI released a detailed study also proving there is no tech worker shortage.

Even the New York Times is showing how Silicon valley wants to continue to commit age discrimination as policy.  These refuse to hire older engineers, claiming it is too costly to retrain.  This is Silicon valley codespeak to not hire older engineers.  Silicon valley is also well know for it's harsh, abusive and authoritarian workplaces.  These corporations prefer foreigners who cannot quit their jobs due to their Visa status for they can abuse guest workers much more easily than those with U.S. citizenship or more mature workers who probably know a thing or two about U.S. employment law.

Yet the House Judiciary Committee just passed yet another bill giving corporations an unlimited supply of skilled cheap labor.  So, come hell or high water, flooding the U.S. labor market with foreign workers seems almost guaranteed.

The Congressional Budget Office scored Senate Immigration bill S.744 and the conclusions are predictable.  The results of the bill will lower per person gross national product and flooding the labor market will lower wages.  This is with very conservative estimate assumptions.   The CBO claims the population will only rise by 10 million over the same time period while most estimates show an increase of 35 million workers over 10 years.   That dramatic of a population increase will result in much more lower per capita GDP and repressed wages than the 10 million population increase assumed by the CBO.

Relative to what would occur under current law, S. 744 would lower per capita GNP by 0.7 percent in 2023.

CBO’s central estimates also show that average wages for the entire labor force would be 0.1 percent lower in 2023.

The House is being bombarded by corporate lobbyists to pass their cheap labor wish list and they are ramping up, full throttle.  With such an impending disaster for U.S. labor if this bill passes, now might be a good time to contact your representatives and tell them to kill this pig in a poke corporate party favor and write real immigration reform legislation that puts U.S. workers first.

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Comments

H-1B Guestworker

According to the Center for Public Integrity, there's also a league of foreign nationals lobbying for this immigration bill. Members of Congress (more interested in their own jobs) are just following the money.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/07/03/12932/league-nations-lobbying-...

One of the purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the current immigration law, is to preserve job opportunities for American citizens...but that's not happening.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/01/1198459/-H-1B-Guest-Worker-Frau...

India BPO is > 4% of their GDP!!

That's right, India believes they have every right to "export" people as part of "trade". In other words, H-1B brings profits to India through remittances and many H-1Bs are actually used to train in the U.S. and then technology transfer the project out of the United States and back to India.

I'm really glad the "left" types of sites are realizing the realities of immigration, labor arbitrage, wages and the economy. About time! The worst is STEM professionals. They sit on their hands and do not organize. If any group needed a union at this point, it is STEM, Bachelors or higher education levels.

the only STEM professionals

the only STEM professionals that i know of off the top of my head that are unionized are BOEING engineers. I'm not sure how many or which disciplines but that is the only one I've ever heard of being in a union. As an engineer myself (presently) i believe hell will freeze over before we see a mass movement among STEM professionals to organize in the United States.

And public sector workers look out, the Republicans want to kill you and oh by the way, the Democrats won't save you.

Good luck to all and good night

Immigration Serves to Discipline US Workforce

Business increasingly uses immigration as a means of disciplining labor. Workers on temporary work visas obviously cannot effectively bargain with business, as they require continued sponsorship. Workers with those visas can oftentimes be counted on to do unethical work under a real threat of deportation.

A new, large pool of cheap immigrant labor - obviously one goal business has for the new immigration bill - will further depress wages in the US. When organized labor is either too misinformed or culpable to oppose such a bill, labor should rightly fear for its future.

Immigration

A wonderful article that sums up the situation quite well. Who would have thought the American worker would be "saved" by the right? Bernie Sanders was eloquent in his criticism and then sacrificed the American worker along with all of the other Democrats--a truly pathetic display. The only entity that is looking out for the American worker in this race to please corporate masters is the conflict between the parties itself: Let's hope it continues because it's obvious that workers have lost a seat at the political table. Period.

Tech Industry is threatening Congress now to pass immigration

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