Month: March 2022

s 3720 Displaces US Tech Workers

By Joe Guzzardi

Like all America, Capitol Hill is focused on Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and watching the continuous updates with apprehension. But even though Congress’ attention is diverted, its dreary business which often includes American worker displacement continues.
 
Last week, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin introduced S. 3720, the “H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act.” Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are cosponsors.
 
Over the decades, the H-1B and the L-1 visas for international transfers have displaced hundreds of thousands of mostly U.S. tech workers, but also other white-collar professionals. Moreover, the easy availability of foreign nationals in the labor market dims the employment prospects for recent U.S. college graduates.
 
The new legislation is touted as bipartisan which immigration realists define as a squishy Republican teaming up with a radical Democrat to promote a bad bill with the media and their congressional peers. Remember the bipartisan 2013 Gang of Eight amnesty wherein four Republicans and four Democrats all had the same F- immigration grade. Or think back further to 2005 and another bipartisan hoax, the McCain-Kennedy immigration billauthored by the most extreme immigration advocates, the Arizona Republican and the Massachusetts Democrat.
 
Although Grassley during his 33 years in Congress has been reliably pro-border and interior enforcement, staunchly opposed to refugee and asylum fraud, he’s been an equally dependable voice for more employment-based visas for foreign nationals. The jointly issued press release from Grassley and Durbin sounded upbeat and encouraging. Grassley: “Our bill takes steps to ensure that the programs [H-1B and L-1] work for Americans and skilled foreign workers alike.” Durbin: “For years, outsourcing companies have used legal loopholes to displace qualified American workers, exploit foreign workers, and facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs. Our legislation would fix these broken programs, protect workers, and put an end to these abuses.” Unfortunately, S. 3720 does none of that, but has extensive flaws that, predictably, are harmful to U.S. tech workers.
 
S. 3720 proposes to eliminate the current random H-1B lottery and replace it with a presumably better system, each a noble goal. But it falls far short and instead prioritizes for the coveted visa four different categories of international students with degrees from U.S. universities: students with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), students with advanced degrees in non-STEM fields, students with bachelor’s degrees in STEM, and students with bachelor’s degrees in non-STEM. The new system would strongly favor the thousands of Indian and Chinese nationals currently enrolled in U.S. university STEM programs.
 
Conspicuously absent from S. 3720 is an effort to eliminate the dual intent of the H-1B. Originally intended as a temporary visa wherein the workers eventually returned home, under the Immigration Act of 1990, the H-1B became a dual-intent visa when Congress subsequently allowed the visa holders to apply for a Green Card. The ill-fated congressional decision gave employers undue control over their international employees, a type of modern-day indentured servitude. H-1B visa employees’ failure to comply with employers’ often unreasonable mandates – excessive unpaid overtime or inadequate working conditions – could result in threats to deport the noncompliant worker, and dash their Green Card hopes. Dual intent also created a huge Green Card backlog, an estimated 9 million.

 
True H-1B and L-1 visa reform would ideally put programs on an extended pause with an eye on eliminating them. Both visas are American job killers, serving only to enable employers to hire cheap, pliant labor. In their Atlantic Council report, Ron Hira and Bharath Gopalaswamy summed up the H-1B program that the Grassley-Durbin legislation does little or nothing to improve. They wrote: “The current system undercuts opportunities for U.S. workers and enables the exploitation of H-1B workers, many of whom are underpaid, vulnerable to abuse, and frequently placed in poor working conditions…. the program has never been fixed to meet the original promises made by Congress of safeguarding U.S. jobs. Instead, the program has been expanded to allow even larger numbers of H-1B workers, admitting them for longer periods of time, while its flawed governing rules have remained as they were in 1990.”
 
The authors recommended that H-1B workers be paid competitively, that employers prove beyond any doubt that they’ve recruited Americans and that visas be allocated to those who truly are the best and brightest by prioritizing selection based on highest wages. The legislation proposed by Durbin and Grassley does nothing to improve the H-1B program or to enact the reasonable, achievable solutions that Hira and Gopalaswamy recommended.
 
Instead, S. 3720 reshuffles the H-1B selection process to prioritize those who came in as international students and obtained an advanced degree in STEM and are paid the minimum prevailing wage. In other words, with the Grassley-Durbin bill, the bulk of H-1B visas would go not to Indian contract workers brought in through outsourcing firms, as is the current situation, but instead to international students who already have access to the Optional Training Program, the nation’s largest guest worker program.
 
 
Joe Guzzardi is a PFIR analyst who has written about immigration and its consequences for 35 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

s 3720 Displaces US Tech Workers s 3720 Displaces US Tech

Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball

By Joe Guzzardi

Totally disgusted, indignant fans have a message for near-universally detested MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, multi-billion-dollar net worth owners, Major League Baseball Players Association’s Executive Director Tony Clark, and the pampered, overpaid, multi-million- dollar-earning players. Take your overpriced tickets, tasteless hot dogs, warm, flat beer, launch angles, exit velocities, pitch counts and stuff them. The commissioner, owners, union and players have grievously misjudged the baseball nation’s post-pandemic, inflation-ravaged, Ukraine war-anxious mood. The last thing baseball bugs want to hear is well-heeled, privileged elitists carping about their lot and the perceived injustices they’re suffering.

The whiners have forgotten that fans have plenty of baseball options, all better than getting fleeced and bored stiff at the old ball yard where game time averages 3:10. High school, junior college and NCAA college games are underway. Parking at some venues is free, and the proceeds from concessions go right back to the athletic department to help buy equipment and defray travel expenses, not to further enrich billionaires.

Junior college provides a launching pad for players who aspire to Division 1 and represents an opportunity for them to get bigger, stronger, better and catch the attention of scouts. Among the JUCOS who became MLB superstars are Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Kirby Puckett, Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, Jorge Posada and Bryce Harper.

At D-1 baseball, the skill level is high. Last weekend, No. 1 ranked Texas and UCLA, Tennessee, Louisiana State and Oklahoma State – all major programs – played in the nationally televised Shriners Children’s College Classic. The teams played nine inning doubleheaders. The Longhorns have a rich history that sent Roger Clemens, Brandon Belt, Huston Street and others to the bigs. The Bruins have placed 28 UCLANs in the Big Show, including standouts Brandon Crawford, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer. Take today’s young players out of their collegiate uniforms and put them in MLB jerseys, and few fans would notice any drop off in the quality of play. Pitchers throw 90 mph-plus; the fielders make wide-ranging plays, and batters hit with power.

At the collegiate level, coaches stress fundamental baseball, something sorely lacking in the big leagues. University of Southern California’s late, legendary coach Rod Dedeaux’s guiding philosophy: “Never make the same mistake once.” Dedeaux’s students listened. During his 45 years as USC coach from 1942 to 1986, Dedeaux’s teams won 11 CWS titles, including five in a row. Many Trojans went on to stellar MLB careers: Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Mark McGwire, Dave Kingman and Fred Lynn.

For televised baseball, viewers have lots of offerings. ESPN will air the top NCAA teams between now and June 27, the date the College World Series ends. If MLB isn’t back in action for the summer months, then fans can check out the 76 Independent League teams. The season ticket package for the Independent League Chicago Dogs is a better value than a single seat at the Cubs’ Wrigley Field, average ticket price $83. The casual, fun times that Independent League baseball offers are available from coast to coast: the Bakersfield Train Robbers, the Kansas City Monarchs, the Milwaukee Milkmen and the New York Boulders. Some teams offer “kids eat free” games, an anathema to MLB owners who charge eye-popping prices for food and beverages. True fans know that the game is the thing, not the guys who play it.

Negotiations between the owners and the players are going poorly. They resent and distrust each other. Even though they sign the checks, the owners can’t believe the salaries players earn. Contracts signed pre-lockout include 37-year-old Max Scherzer’s $130 million, three-year deal with the New York Mets, a record-setting $43 million per season. When last heard from, Scherzer begged off from a crucial World Series pitching turn: “arm fatigue.” Money flows so freely in baseball that the Washington Nationals’ 24-year-old outfielder Juan Soto rejected a $350 million, 13-year extension. Soto’s reasoning: when he becomes a free agent after the 2024 season, he anticipates he can ink a $500 million deal.

No one knows when the ugly, take-no-prisoners negotiations will end. The only certainty is that baseball, already losing fans to professional football, basketball and soccer, has sustained another black eye, something it can ill-afford. The old-fashioned, field of dreams romantic vision of baseball as the national pastime, with fathers and sons playing backyard catch, is gone forever. In its place stands the image of nasty haggling over whether players’ minimum annual salaries can reach $755,000 or whether they’ll have to settle for the owners’ $640,000 offer.

Enough! More can be gained from focusing on the great college teams and their coaches’ insights. Bob Leach, who played for Dedeaux on the Trojans’ 1974-1976 teams wrote this about his coach: “Most of us players thought we were in training to become major leaguers. In reality, we were all serving an internship for life. In addition to making great baseball teams, he was more importantly passing on his wisdom and experience so that we could succeed in any setting.” Too bad that Dedeaux’s understanding of the human condition hasn’t reached Manfred, Clark, Scherzer, et al.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball