Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:23:40 -0700 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: BusinessWeek profile To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter BusinessWeek was originally going to do a piece on the various players in the H-1B reform movement, but decided to focus on me instead. The article is enclosed below. Of course, I do have some comments. # As are most advocates on immigration issues, Matloff is a controversial # figure. He's admired by supporters--including activists on H-1B visa # issues--but criticized by other academics who don't share his views and # who chafe at his often-abrasive rhetorical style. Critics also suggest # there could be a xenophobic undertone implicit in his critique of the # H-1B visa program. Matloff posts opinionated blog entries on the Web # site of Numbers USA, a group calling for lower levels of immigration. # His writing prompted one tech worker, Arthur Hu of Bothell, Wash., to # create a Web page criticizing Matloff, whom he calls the "Hatchet Man # of Asian Immigration." Some of the reader comments on this article take BusinessWeek to task for giving a voice to "Kevin, the IT Grunt," who is obviously some fringe guy on the H-1B issue. I might say the same for Arthur Hu. With hundreds of millions of Web users, there is likely to be one that rants against any topic under the sun, and it happens that one of Arthur's topics is me. :-) That's fine, but some readers of the article may mistakenly take this to mean that Asian-Americans agree with him on the H-1B issue, which they don't. Every time I'm invited to speak to an Asian-American conference, such as the Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy at Harvard and the Asian-American Out of the Silence Conference at Stanford, I get solid support from the audiences. This should be no surprise--with so many Asian-Americans in engineering, H-1B puts their jobs at risk. My support from my own students, two-thirds of whom are Asian-American (not Asian foreign students), is also quite strong. I'm proud to say that they've nominated me for various teaching awards, some of which I've been fortunate to win. # Matloff has influence on the H-1B visa debate beyond his Web page and # e-mail newsletter. He has worked with Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) # on a bill introduced in April that would add restrictions to the H-1B # visa program. Small correction: Though I've worked with Grassley's office, I've never talked to the senator himself. # (itgrunt.com). "THAT IS ONE ARTICULATE [expletive]", wrote Kevin in a # post in April referring to Matloff. (Matloff distances himself from # "Kevin" and his Web site and says his views are "unrepresentative.") Maybe this is a small correction too, but I want to clarify that what I told Moira Herbst, the reporter, was that I had never even heard of Kevin/IT Grunt until she herself brought him to my attention. # Matloff has his share of supporters and critics in the academic world, # too. "Matloff routinely attacks the work of other academics by citing # statistics and data which have no basis," says Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke # University engineering professor and fellow with the Labor & Worklife # Program at Harvard Law School. (Wadhwa is also a columnist for # BusinessWeek.com.) "He claims to have performed his own research, but # this research doesn't seem to have been published by credible # authorities or have received any form of peer review." I wish Ms. Herbst had given me a chance to comment. Vivek's statements here are unfair and I believe close to being legally actionable. They are not quite as bad as what he told a San Francisco radio station recently, which I reported on here at the time, but to suggest that an academic is dishonest in his research is to endanger his ability to make a living, and I wish BusinessWeek had not given its colleague such lattitude. I'll leave the reader to peruse the details at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/VivekWadhwaCrossesLine.txt but I will comment on a couple of points here. First, my University of Michigan article that Herbst mentions was indeed peer-reviewed, and obviously was in a very prestigious venue. To my knowledge, it is the most extensive paper ever published on H-1B, 99 pages in length with over 300 footnotes. My other article cited by Herbst was in a publication of the California State Bar Association, and was written at their invitation. I've also written articles at the invitation of publications of the Association for Computing Machinery (the main computer science professional organization), IEEE (the main electrical engineering association), and so on. Second, the vast majority of my analyses use publicly available data, from the U.S. Census PUMS database, the U.S. Dept. of Labor PERM data, NSF's NSCG survey and so on. Thus anyone can confirm my analyses. Putting Vivek's remarks aside, the much more important point is that he and I agree on the main issues: (a) H-1B is widely used by employers as a source of cheap labor. (b) The employers underpay the H-1Bs in full compliance with the law, exploiting loopholes. (c) There is no tech labor shortage. Vivek wrote the following in The American last year (see www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/america2019s-other-immigration-crisis): % Moreover, I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are % cheaper than domestic hires. Technically, these workers are supposed % to be paid a “prevailing wage,” but this mechanism is riddled with % loopholes. We also agree on point (c); see for example http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9910492 Finally, there is a quote from Lindsay Lowell: # But other academics say they respect his work. "Matloff understands the # guts of the issue in a way many academics don't," says B. Lindsay # Lowell, director of policy studies at Georgetown University's Institute # for the Study of International Migration. "He brings a lot of passion # to the subject, which has its upsides and downsides. At times it can # detract from his message." Lowell adds that "as a professor, I believe # he may take the career options of his students seriously and believes, # to some extent, that an oversupply of highly skilled immigrants--H-1Bs # in particular--is not in the interest of the domestic supply line." But # Lowell says that like many researchers in this area, Matloff lacks # definitive data on, for example, the proportion of older workers who # are laid off and replaced by younger workers or H-1B visa holders. In turn I have had high praise for Lindsay. Readers will recall my praise of his Urban Institute study with Hal Salzman that contradicted the doomsday reports we see so often in the press (often fed to the press by organizations with their own agendas) on America's educational system. See my postings on this at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/UrbanInst.txt and http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/UrbanInst2.txt Concerning Lindsay's "lacks definitive data" comment, though, I must point out the following. The data showing the underpayment of the H-1Bs and the problems of older (age 35+) workers in the field is overwhelming. What Lindsay is referring to, though, is a connection between the two. Has the negative impact of H-1B on older tech workers been "definitively" established? I believe it has, though not in the way in which Lindsay has posed the question, in terms of layoffs. Yes, it does sometimes happen that older Americans are laid off and replaced by younger workers or H-1Bs. (Statistically, most H-1Bs are young.) But typically it's not so direct. Instead, a job opens, and the young Americans and H-1Bs are hired instead of the older Americans. There is excellent, yes "definitive," data on this, such as studies by American University and the National Research Council, the latter commissioned by Congress. The industry lobbyists try to spin this as lack of modern skills on the part of the older Americans. This is a red herring, as I show extensively in my University of Michigan and California State Bar articles. They simply don't want to hire the older worker, who is more expensive in salary and benefits. Vivek, a former tech CEO, has agreed with me on this point many times, saying for instance in http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2009/05/01/segments/130690: % ...even if the [older] $120,000 programmer gets the right skills, % companies would rather hire the younger workers. That's really what's % behind this. As a professional statistician and former statistics professor, I would like to make one more point concerning Salzman's comment on data: It must be coupled with qualitative knowledge of the matter being studied. Otherwise, the analyst is like the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, constructing ever more intricate mathematical theories based on totally false premises (sun revolving around the Earth). In the H-1B salary area, for instance, there are lots of pitfalls for the unwary. I have a detailed discussion of this in my University of Michigan paper. The article follows below. Sorry for my absence these last few weeks. I've been busy with family matters. But I've got a lot to write about in the next couple of weeks, including my long-awaited analysis of the Kerr/Lincoln paper on immigrant patenting. Norm http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db20090626_585028.htm BusinessWeek June 28, 2009 An Academic's Labor Helps Fight H-1B Visas Norm Matloff, a computer science professor with a Chinese-born wife, says the U.S. skilled-immigrant visa system exploits workers everywhere By Moira Herbst Not many computer science professors are activists on immigration policy. But Norm Matloff of the University of California, Davis wears both hats. He has been a vocal critic of the H-1B visa program for skilled immigrants since the mid-1990s, and now maintains a Web page and e-mail listserv discussing offshoring and the H-1B visa program, which he calls a "sham." He says his motivation is to protect and preserve tech job opportunities for the students he teaches. "I have no personal stake in any of this," says Matloff, who is 60. "If the H-1B program were disbanded tomorrow, my personal well-being would not improve one iota. [But] when I see something that is not right and about which I know something, I tend to speak out. On this issue, I know where the bodies are buried." The H-1B visa program inspires heated debate, especially online. The program is controversial for a number of reasons. Some critics say the program allows U.S. companies to import cheaper labor, dampening wages and displacing U.S. workers. Others say it facilitates outsourcing, as it allows Indian-born tech workers to train in the U.S. and then return home and perform the work there. Still others point to mounting evidence of fraud in the program and a lack of government oversight. "De Facto Indentured Servants" Matloff stresses that the problem is not fraud or crime but the H-1B visa law itself. He says that the law as currently written allows H-1B visa holders to receive below-market wages. The policy also allows for age discrimination as older U.S. tech workers are displaced by a younger workforce from abroad. "Though the industry lobbyists portray it as a remedy for labor shortages and as a means of hiring 'the best and the brightest' from around the world, the visa is used to access workers that cost less and are de facto indentured servants," Matloff writes on his blog. Matloff has written extensively about the effects of globalization and offshoring on U.S. IT workers and has been quoted on the issue in most major media outlets. He has also testified before Congress as an expert on the work visa law. Some of his most influential academic work includes a fall 2003 article in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform on the H-1B work visa called "On the Need for Reform of the H-1B Nonimmigrant Work Visa in Computer-Related Occupations." A 2006 article that linked H-1B visas to age discrimination in the computer industry was published by the California Labor & Employment Law Review. As are most advocates on immigration issues, Matloff is a controversial figure. He's admired by supporters--including activists on H-1B visa issues--but criticized by other academics who don't share his views and who chafe at his often-abrasive rhetorical style. Critics also suggest there could be a xenophobic undertone implicit in his critique of the H-1B visa program. Matloff posts opinionated blog entries on the Web site of Numbers USA, a group calling for lower levels of immigration. His writing prompted one tech worker, Arthur Hu of Bothell, Wash., to create a Web page criticizing Matloff, whom he calls the "Hatchet Man of Asian Immigration." Matloff: Job Loss Is the Only Issue Matloff firmly denies that he is prejudiced. He says that to the contrary, he is active in the Chinese community and has served as an expert witness in litigation on age and racial discrimination in the software industry. He points out that he is the son of an immigrant who grew up in a working-class, ethnically mixed part of Los Angeles. His wife was born in China and he speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin with her and their daughter at home. "I hope that absolves me of all suspicion," he says. Matloff also disputes the idea that those who oppose the H-1B visa program are xenophobic. "To make the claim that somehow the [anti-H-1B visa] movement is motivated by race is flat-out wrong," says Matloff. "People can get really emotional in listservs, some of them to the point of getting paranoid....But even then I don't see racial or xenophobic language [emerge], except on occasion." He adds that the issue is about the loss of jobs and not ethnicity. "The implication [of the racial argument] would be that an activist wouldn't mind if some Canadian or someone of European ancestry took his or her job," he says. "If you lose your job, you lose your job." Matloff has influence on the H-1B visa debate beyond his Web page and e-mail newsletter. He has worked with Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on a bill introduced in April that would add restrictions to the H-1B visa program. Drawing Criticism from Both Sides To some opponents of H-1B visas, Matloff is something of a hero--and in a sense, the intellectual backbone of their movement. "Matloff was the first person to raise attention to this issue and provide a detailed analysis of the impact of the H-1B visa program," says John Miano, founder of U.S. tech advocacy group the Programmers Guild and a labor attorney in Summit, N.J. "I and others knew what was going on anecdotally, but he got the data together to shine the light on the big picture. He provides most of the leadership from an academic point of view." Others seem less enamored. "While I do admire Matloff and find his work to be substantial, his contribution to our cause has been academic and largely ignored by the I.T. industry," says "Kevin," who publishes a blog that routinely refers to Indian tech workers as "slumdogs" (itgrunt.com). "THAT IS ONE ARTICULATE [expletive]", wrote Kevin in a post in April referring to Matloff. (Matloff distances himself from "Kevin" and his Web site and says his views are "unrepresentative.") Matloff has his share of supporters and critics in the academic world, too. "Matloff routinely attacks the work of other academics by citing statistics and data which have no basis," says Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke University engineering professor and fellow with the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. (Wadhwa is also a columnist for BusinessWeek.com.) "He claims to have performed his own research, but this research doesn't seem to have been published by credible authorities or have received any form of peer review." Policymaking vs. Research But other academics say they respect his work. "Matloff understands the guts of the issue in a way many academics don't," says B. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration. "He brings a lot of passion to the subject, which has its upsides and downsides. At times it can detract from his message." Lowell adds that "as a professor, I believe he may take the career options of his students seriously and believes, to some extent, that an oversupply of highly skilled immigrants--H-1Bs in particular--is not in the interest of the domestic supply line." But Lowell says that like many researchers in this area, Matloff lacks definitive data on, for example, the proportion of older workers who are laid off and replaced by younger workers or H-1B visa holders. Anti-H-1B activists say they're worried less about academic research and more about shaping policy. "The thing that's missing in Norm Matloff's strategy is fighting for a seat at the table," says Donna Conroy, executive director of Bright Future Jobs, a lobbying group that advocates restricting the H-1B visa program. "We need a political movement that allows us to help craft legislation. All the numbers [Matloff] crunches won't have nearly the impact as American technical professionals standing up for themselves." Still, Matloff says he's ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work on H-1B visa reform: "If and when Congress wants to clean up this mess, I can tell them how to do it." Herbst is a reporter for BusinessWeek in New York.