CT Blue

 I saw a butchered version of the exchange referenced in this article on the Daily Show. Stewart was trying to play it for laughs, or course, so he cut off the portion about the H-1B visa issue. The basic story is that a woman asked Obama why her husband had to compete with holders of  H-1B visas. These are the folks that are increasingly allowed into this country to perform highly skilled work at low wages because, somewhat mysteriously, Americans are simply unable or unwilling to perform the work. Obama apparently seemed genuinely surprised that the woman’s husband was ready, willing and able to perform work the corporations insisted Americans wouldn’t do, which is why he asked for the husband’s resume. Whether he’ll actually follow up is another question; though he should. It would be a great campaign issue if he took these Visas on. Suddenly, we’d be hearing Republicans defend (relatively) highly paid foreign workers coming in for American jobs, while still attacking all those Mexicans coming in to take the farm labor jobs that Americans are just itching to perform.

Could it be that people like Obama have really believed the corporate bullshit justifying these Visas? I’ve written before about my sister, who worked at the Hartford, and had to train her replacement H-1B visa holder to take the job that the Hartford had decreed that she and her co-workers no longer wanted to perform. All that was news to her, of course, and to the rest of the folks who were being replaced by foreign workers. At the Hartford the whole thing didn’t work out that well, apparently, but as the linked article states, many times these visa holders are just the first steps toward full scale outsourcing.

The corporate justification for this sort of thing helps create a situation in which the lie become true. If, as in my sister’s case, you start eliminating computer analysts, then pretty soon there will be a shortage of analysts in this country, since no one is going to try to enter a field from which they’ve been barred because they are citizens of this country. If these corporations want to keep these visas, then perhaps we should consider a modification to the law. Give a right of private action to 1) any worker who can prove they were employed by a corporation, were ready, willing and able to continue to perform the job, and were replaced by an H-1B worker, or 2) any worker who can prove they were ready, willing and able to perform a job filled by an H-1B worker. Allow class actions and provide for ample statutorily computed damages, a little like the Truth in Lending Act. The law would be enforced and it wouldn’t cost the government a dime, except for the salaries of the judges hearing the cases. As things stand now, there is every incentive for these corporations to lie to obtain cheap workers. It might help just a bit to make it easy for affected workers to exact some justice.