Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:24:59 -0800 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: AP coverage of the Senate bill To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter A number of points worth commenting on here: * ''I have trouble filling high-tech jobs in remote areas, and even in * metropolitan areas finding the right person,'' said Woody Sessums, a * vice president at Cisco Systems, Inc. ''We want the very smartest, the * most high-level engineers to come here and stay, and we have to * compete globally.'' Let's take that second statement first. As we all know, "the best and the brightest" in the computer field make well over $100,000 per year. Yet, the government data show that the computer-related H-1Bs in 2003 (the latest data) had a median salary of $60,000, with a 75th percentile of $73,000 (Characteristics of Specialty Occupation Workers (H-1B): Fiscal Year 2003, October 2002 to September 2003, http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/ repsstudies/h1b/index.htm). Even allowing for the underpayment of H-1Bs, you can see that the vast majority of H-1Bs are NOT "the best and the brightest." What is more interesting is his point about "remote areas." A few months ago an employer contacted me from a California Central Valley town, saying he just couldn't get good applicants, due to his geographical "handicap." I sent him a couple of people that he conceded were good, and who were quite willing to relocate and to take a salary commesurate with the region, but he hired neither. The fact is that what he and the other employers want is cheap labor. * Sessums was among the speakers at a Monday forum organized by the * University of California Washington Center, the California Institute * for Federal Policy Research and TechNet, a high-tech lobby group. Aiya. This is rather depressing. A few months ago, I was invited to give a talk at the UC Berkeley Center for Globablization and Information Technology in the UCB Institute of Governmental Studies. (See my slides at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/BerkSlides.pdf) The talk was very well received, one of the attendees, a member of IGS, asked me if I would be interested in speaking at the DC forum cited above in the article. IGS' director, Bruce Cain, is serving as director of the DC Center this year. I said sure, I'd be happy to make a presentation at the forum, and the IGS guy said I'd be hearing from them. Well, I never did hear from them, and now the above passage from the article suggests an explanation as to why: TechNet may have nixed me. If this speculation is correct, why would UC cave to such pressure from industry? Well, as I've said before, academia has always made common cause with industry on the H-1B and related issues, for a variety of reasons. One big reason is that academia reaps major monetary benefits from industry, ranging from research funding to donations of equipment and even buildings. For instance, It's no accident that the Computer Science Dept. at Stanford is housed in (Bill) Gates Hall. In fact, a plaque at the entrance of the building notes that the following firms and individuals contributed to the construction: Allied Signal AT&T Fujitsu Wm. Gates Wm. Hewlett Hewlett-Packard Erik Jonsson Lockheed-Martin Mitsubishi Electric NEC PG&E Rockwell Southern California Edison Toshiba TRW And across the way from Gates Hall are the Wm. Hewlett Teaching Center and the David Packard electrical engineering building. Academics also benefit individually. Here's a brief case study from my university law journal article (see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/MichJLawReform.pdf): - The Web page of the Computer Science Department at the University of - Washington, a leading supporter of industry's labor shortage claims, - showed the following as of March 16, 2000: $1.5 milion from Ford Motor - Co. in research funds; ``several million dollars'' in equipment from - Intel; $500,000 from Boeing for an endowed faculty chair; another - $500,000 chair from Microsoft; another chair from Boeing; and finally, - $3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for two endowed - chairs. Department chair Ed Lazowska, who has been an outspoken - supporter of the H-1B program, personally benefits financially from a - cozy relationship with industry too. According to his personal Web - page, http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu, he is ``member of the - Technical Advisory Boards for Microsoft Research, Voyager Capital, - Ignition, Frazier Technology Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, and - Impinj, and of the Boards of Directors of Data I/O Corporation and - Lguide.com.'' In addition, universities depend crucially on foreign graduate students, who do the research which bring in the federal grant money. The foreign students come here in the hope of getting sponsorship for green cards (with temporary status via H-1B) in industry after graduation, so the universities "need" a big H-1B cap in order to make U.S. study attractive to foreign students. Recall that the National Science Foundation planned it this way, advocating bringing in large numbers of foreign PhD students in order to hold down PhD salaries in science and engineering in the U.S. The NSF said at the time that the foreign students would come here for the green cards, while U.S. domestic students would turn away from graduate study due to the low PhD salaries. See http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/ProposedMSPhDExemption.txt for the details, plus the reasons why the whole issue of graduate degrees is way overblown in the first place. See also my analysis of Intel's H-1B wage data at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/IntelH1BWages.txt So you can see why academia is so supportive of the current Senate bill, which both expands the H-1B program and creates a new F-4 visa for foreign graduate students, giving them essentially automatic green cards. I must say I'm proud of my own university, UC Davis, for the support it has given me during my rabblerousing on these issues. Indeed, they selected me a few years ago for their Distinguished Public Service Award, partly because of my work in this area. See http://academicsenate.ucdavis.edu/award/bios/matloff.html But that is the exception. Indeed, a check of the Web page shows that the title of the UC DC Center's forum turns out to be titled " Maintaining America's Competitiveness: Immigration and Higher Education, a title that might as well have been (and indeed probably WAS) written by the industry lobbyists. In my earlier posting today, I noted that the lobbyists planned on sneaking the H-1B/F-4 provisions through without much debate, as the focus would be on undocumented immigration. Well, interestingly, here is one of the major lobbyists saying so: * ''Hopefully there's enough support in the Senate for this that we can * get this through while they're arguing about the other issues,'' said * Victor Johnson, associate executive director at the Association of * International Educators. Norm http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Immigration-High-Tech.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Tech Firms Eye Immigration Debate By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: March 28, 2006 WASHINGTON (AP) -- High-tech firms eager to import more engineers, computer buffs and other skilled workers are waiting anxiously to see if their needs will be met as Congress grapples with overhauling immigration law. As senators began work Monday on an immigration bill, officials from tech companies, universities and trade groups gathered in a Senate meeting room to tick off some of their top priorities: adding more visas for high-tech workers and making it easier for tech-savvy foreign students to come to the U.S. and stay. They aren't the issues that have grabbed headlines, like fencing off the U.S.-Mexico border or what to do with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country. But high-tech officials say they are essential at a time when the U.S. is creating more technology jobs but producing fewer college and university graduates with engineering degrees. ''I have trouble filling high-tech jobs in remote areas, and even in metropolitan areas finding the right person,'' said Woody Sessums, a vice president at Cisco Systems, Inc. ''We want the very smartest, the most high-level engineers to come here and stay, and we have to compete globally.'' Sessums was among the speakers at a Monday forum organized by the University of California Washington Center, the California Institute for Federal Policy Research and TechNet, a high-tech lobby group. An immigration bill the House passed in December did not contain any of the main provisions high-tech companies are seeking. They are more hopeful about what might come out of the Senate, although the two measures would then have to be reconciled. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has proposed allowing more of the popular H1-B visas that go to high-tech workers. Congress capped the six-year H-1B visas at 65,000 per year in 2004, and for the past few years that cap has been met even before the beginning of each fiscal year. Specter would increase the cap to 115,000, with more increases possible depending on demand. ''We don't have enough homegrown scientists and people who are well-trained in math and science, and what happens is those jobs are offshored or outsourced to places like India and China,'' Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said as the Judiciary Committee debated the issue Monday. ''It represents a real challenge to American competitiveness.'' Specter's legislation also would change how foreign students are dealt with, creating a new visa for students in science, technology, engineering and math and allowing them to take a job after they graduate and apply for permanent residency. Currently foreign students must pledge to leave the U.S. after completing their studies. ''A lot of that innovation, talent and invention is now pushed to other countries,'' said Tod Loofbourrow, president and chief executive of Authoria, Inc., a Massachusetts company that focuses on recruitment and work force productivity. The Judiciary Committee passed Specter's bill Monday and the full Senate was expected to take it up Tuesday. ''Hopefully there's enough support in the Senate for this that we can get this through while they're arguing about the other issues,'' said Victor Johnson, associate executive director at the Association of International Educators.