Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:15:40 -0800 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: "Why don't they listen to us?" To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter The subscribers to this e-newsletter consist of journalists, academics, Capitol Hill staffers and of course most of all, programmers/engineers. This posting will discuss the first and last of these categories, and among other things will post a query to the first. I will end below by posing questions to the journalists. I hope they read all the way through this somewhat longish posting, but if they wish to skip right down to the questions at the end, that's fine too. I often receive e-mail from programmers and engineers, asking why the issue of foreign workers (H-1B, employment-based green cards) does not get more traction from the press and Congress. The message enclosed below, posted here with the permission of the author (though I've removed identifying information anyway), is typical of such queries. The easy answer to the question is that the pro-H-1B lobbyists give lots of money to congressional campaigns, and spend lots of money on the best PR people, who then "educate" Congress and the press. The types of groups lobbying include: * the tech industry (several big organizations, and lots of lobbying by individual firms) * the American Immigration Lawyers Association * academia in general * the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers * Indian-American political activist groups (who, like most ethnic activists, do NOT represent the views of their putative constituents) Spending money on the Hill works, of course. Let me repeat the quotes I gave a couple of days ago (and often in the past): When Congress enacted an H-1B increase in 2000, Sen. Robert Bennett remarked, "Once it's clear (the visa bill) is going to get through, everybody signs up so nobody can be in the position of being accused of being against high tech. There were, in fact, a whole lot of folks against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public." The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee Chair, Rep. Tom Davis, said, "This is not a popular bill with the public. It's popular with the CEOs...This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money." I normally do not initiate contact people in Congress (though sometimes I do so at the request of the Programmers Guild and other H-1B critic activists). Thus I cannot claim to be an expert in all aspects of how H-1B is viewed by Congress. But I've seen enough to understand quite well that it really is a case of "Follow the money" as exemplified in the quotes above. The case of Ellen Tauscher, my own congressperson, is instructive. Another one of Rep. Tauscher's constituents met with her and suggested that she hold a district hearing on the H-1B issue. She indicated that she was well aware of "TubeGate," the video made by a prominent law firm to teach their clients how to exploit the loopholes in H-1B and green card law. She initially agreed to hold some kind of public forum in the district, but subsequently kept hedging and stalling, and finally reneged outright. According to the constituent, she also refused his suggestion that she meet with me. What is she afraid of? Even Rep. Zoe Lofgren, "queen of H-1B," met with the Programmers Guild, a meeting I attended as well. Why Tauscher's reluctance? The case for reform of H-1B and employment-based green cards is, I submit, overwhelming, including strong findings from two congressionally-commissioned studies, plus a number of academic studies. The analyses show clearly that the H-1Bs are typically underpaid, that they are hired instead of qualified U.S. citizens and permanent residents, that the vast majority are not "the best and the brightest," that the abuse occurs in big mainstream firms rather than just the "bodyshops," that the claimed "skills shortage" is phony, etc. Yet the issue of genuine reform is shunned on the Hill. A few in Congress have embraced the issue. Durbin, Grassley and Sanders are notable examples in the Senate, and there are Reps. Pascrell and DeLauro on the House side. Yet their bills attracted virtually no cosponsors, and never made it to committee. The recent unanimous (albeit voice vote) passage of the Sanders/Grassley amendment regarding H-1B hiring by TARP recipients may be a harbinger of better things to come, but this is not yet clear, and in light of history, is doubtful. Needless to say, the H-1B critics need to become more vocal and more organized. Programmers and engineers, as a group, tend to be reticent people who are not comfortable with speaking out. Many fear retribution. But clearly, campaign money is an obvious, accurate, and I believe 90% complete explanation for Congress' actions. But why the press? Why hasn't the press jumped on this issue? Mind you, I'm not saying the press has been biased. There have been a very small number of exceptions (two mentioned below), but the vast majority have been fair. Fair, yes, but typically superficial. Usually the reporter is on a deadline, needs a quick quote from both sides of the issue, and will file his/her story, never to return to the subject. It's not really their fault, what with newspapers and magazines already being in big financial trouble. But many of my readers wonder why what they see, with considerable justificaiton, as an outrageous threat to the long-term viability of the middle class, enacted and repeatedly revalidated by our own elected leaders, has not provoked some journalist, somewhere, somehow to convince his/her editor/publisher/broadcaster to really get to the bottom of this issue, and expose the entire sordid story once and for all. Indeed, the press is hardly covering the issue at all these days. By contrast, in 1998, they were all on the story. There was repeated coverage on all the network evening news shows, in the New York Times, the Washington Post and so on. Ditto for 2000. After that, though, there has been almost nothing. There have been a few who've stayed with the topic. Computerworld is an obvious example, and BusinessWeek has also consistently covered it since 1998. The quality has been good in both publications, with a bit more detail in Computerworld. The San Jose Mercury News, though running openly biased editorials supporting an expanded H-1B program, has also generally had good coverage. The remarkably tenacious Lou Dobbs won't give up on the issue. But for the rest, it's not that the quality is poor, but rather that they are not covering the issue at all. Why not? I normally don't initiate contact with journalists either (though I've written op-eds), so again I must make the disclaimer that I don't have enough information to make firm statements here. Below I will call for the journalists on the distribution list of this e-newsletter to give me their thoughts. Having said that, though, here are mine. In some cases there is rank censorship. Last year, for instance, the Washington Post ran an op-ed by Bill Gates calling for an expanded H-1B program. When I submitted an op-ed manuscript in response (the Post had run an op-ed of mine back in 2000), the op-ed editor made it clear that no opposing pieces would be run, from me or anyone else (I suggested Prof. Ron Hira). Gates' wife sits on the board of the Post. There may be other "Mrs. Gates" cases in the print and electronic media, as well as censoring advertisers. But in general, I think the major obstacle is the "I-word"--immigration. The press, I believe, simply does not want to publish anything that is critical of any aspect of legal immigration. They have become especially interested in avoiding offending major ethnic groups associated with immigration, which in the case of H-1B means Indian-Americans. The latter point is ironic, since far more Indian-Americans are being harmed by the H-1B program than are benefitting by it, a point known only too well by my Indian-American subscribers. Yet I believe that this is what was at work, for instance, in the case of the 60 Minutes piece alluded to in the e-mail message enclosed below. 60 Minutes had actually ran a critical segment on H-1B back in 1993. But when (according to the producer) "an Indian doctor" suggested they run a piece on the "IITs"--the Indian Institutes of Technology--a couple of years ago, the show chose not only to run such a piece, but made sure it would be a puff piece. The IITs indeed deserved a 60 Minutes episode. They are excellent institutions, a real Indian success story. I have several excellent faculty colleagues who are IIT alumni, and we've had a number of high-quality graduate students from the school. However, to present the IITs as some sort of uberschool, with uberprofessors teaching uberstudents, is just plain wrong. The IIT curriculum is pedestrian, and most of their faculty is undistinguished in research. The students themselves are bright, but no brighter than an A student at any of the University of California campuses, for instance. Fine, 60 Minutes can overdo it sometimes. But in this case the program clearly arose as a component of the PR campaign underway at the time, called "Brand IIT," one of whose purposes was clearly to promote offshoring to India and raising the H-1B visa cap. In spite of viewer complaints, 60 Minutes never ran a single letter of dissent in its Letters segment, and on the contrary chose to re-run the show on several occasions. One angry viewer contacted the producer, and eventually I was brought into their e-mail conversation. It was clear from the producer's comments that this IIT show was a sacred cow, no pun intended, with no dissenting opinion allowed. The week before, 60 Minutes had run a segment on Stephen Hawkings, the severely disabled physicist, and yet in spite of Hawkings' enormous courage etc., 60 Minutes had still felt it necessary to add "balance" by quoting a rival physicist who said that Hawkings' research work wasn't that great. Yet 60 Minutes felt no need for balance in the IIT piece, even as little as running a dissenting viewer letter. A couple of years ago a producer for Bill Moyers contacted me on the offshoring issue. When I said that H-1B was having at least as large an impact on American workers as offshoring, and that also the two are connected, the producer replied that the show would be only on offshoring, and would not mention H-1B/L-1 at all. At first she said that this was because "The H-1B/L-1 subject has been covered a lot already by the press." When I said that that was true for offshoring too, she then gave the real reason: "Immigration is too sensitive an issue for our show." So, I ask journalists who read this e-newsletter: What are your thoughts on the above? Is much of the press consciously reluctant to touch the H-1B issue? If so, is it because it deals with legal immigration? If you reply, please let me know whether I should use your name/affiliation, or for that matter whether I may quote you at all. Thanks in advance. Norm ----- Forwarded message from *********************** ----- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:11:46 -0800 (PST) From: *********************** Subject: Re: some recent events To: Norm Matloff Norm, my wife thinks those of us with a concern here (me specifically) should quit bitching about H-1B issues and get it publicized. She thinks if the public knew about it the outrage would pressure Congress. I email support to those journalists who present the truth, and email criticisms (it's the money!!!!!!!, not the best and brightest or a labor shortage or bad American education). But it seems to me journalists have bought the corporate BS hook, line and sinker. I recall Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes going to India and being fed the best & brightest BS and buying it without argument. I also note tom Friedman's rather uncritical assertion that the rest of the world will eat us alive in part because they equal or surpass us in educational quality. Rather, I'm inclined to think the public, relatively indifferent to the plight of millions of workers in the manufacturing sector, could care less about a few hundred thousand highly paid hi-tech types.  The only chance we might have is for H-1Bs to be seen as one more "Bad Thing" example of corporate greed and indifference to average American workers. How do we get the media to see this and present it to the public? Cheers **