To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Wed Apr 3 21:59:37 PDT 2013 I often speak of the "Intels versus the Infosyses," describing the favored and unfavored types of firms from the point of view of Congress, the press and even many critics of the H-1B program. They view the mainstream firms as "good" users of H-1B, while the Indian outsourcing firms are "bad," under that point of view. But due to an alert reader of this e-newsletter, I can now use another catch phrase, the "Walmarts versus the Wipros." No, the phrase itself did not come from my reader; I haven't taken to outsourcing alliteration for this e-newsletter. :-) But he did spot what was going on at Walmart in terms of H-1B. He checked http://www.visasquare.com/h1b-visa/case-details/walmart-associates-inc-424042/programmeranalyst-35228.html and came across some data that he found quite disturbing. (By the way, though the above Web page is handy, I recommend downloading the raw data at http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ and then doing your own spreadsheet analysis.) It turns out that Walmart is hiring, or at least asking DOL permission to hire, a number of H-1Bs under the job title Programmer Analyst. In fact, the firm has asked for more of them each year, 130 in the last year shown, 2011. Moreover, Walmart is using as its prevailing wage rate figures in the $50K and even $40K range. These are well below the average starting salary of new graduates in computer science, though as almost always is the case, fully legal. Interestingly, in this time of alleged tech labor shortage, the prevailing wage Walmart uses for Programmer Analyst has been pretty much on a DOWNWARD trend in the last five years. And the PERM data show that Walmart doesn't seem to be sponsoring these workers for green cards. (Though it does sponsor some with Software Engineer title, and paying them more--with Fragomen being the law firm handling the processing.) Hmmm...If I didn't know better, the above traits would make me think that...Could it be?...Walmart is secretly an Indian outsourcing firm! Yep, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and...Walmart. Forgive my facetiousness, but my point is, as always, that it is wrong to demonize the Indian firms. Abuse of H-1B is pervasive THROUGHOUT the industry. It is NOT only in, or mainly in, the Indian outsourcing firms. Every time I make this point, I hear from irate programmers who have been mistreated by those firms, with fake job interviews, etc. But don't forget the fake "consideration" Cisco gave to David Huber's job application, recounted in http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/FragomenAudit.txt He didn't even get a fake interview. But when I say it is wrong to demonize the Indian firms, you need not view this as being "ethically" wrong; just view it as wrong in the practical sense, meaning that it would not achieve MEANINGFUL legislation that remedies the current problem of U.S. citizens and permanent residents losing job opportunities due to a misguided government program. In short, my point is that legislation targeting the Indian firms wouldn't increase job opportunities for American tech workers. Not only would Congress insert loopholes for the Wipros, allowing them to conduct business as usual, but also Congress would do nothing to stop the Walmarts. And need I point out that there are tons of "Walmarts," mainstread U.S. firms, large and small? My reader also noticed, to his bafflement and horror, that Walmart is also hiring H-1B pharmacists! Is that yet another "shortage" occupation? This really brought to a head his feeling that Congress, deliberately or unwittingly, is on a path to destroy the middle class. Finally, what kinds of H-1Bs are the "Intels" hiring? No, they're not hiring pharmacists. :-) But they are hiring H-1B Marketing Managers, Finance Analysts, Statisticians, Strategic Planners and so on. Same for Microsoft. Same for Google. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Intel's claimed "shortage" for those jobs really means a shortage of young, cheap workers. (I should mention, as I have before, that I would submit that most of Intel's engineering hires could be filled domestically too.) Mind you, I'm not saying Walmart is cheating. On the contrary, I'm sure they are NOT cheating; they are merely making deft use of the loopholes, just like everyone else in the industry does, including the Intels. And the American Tech Job Destruction Act of 2013, if there finally is one, would add lots of new loopholes to the old ones. For the industry lobbyists, talk of the Indian bodyshops makes for a nice diversion from the real issues. Norm Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WalmartsVsWipros.txt