More Americans Losing Their Jobs to H1-B Scabs

[ymetca]

Southern California Edison IT workers 'beyond furious' over H-1B replacements

The SCE outsourcing "is one more case, in a long line of them, of injustice where American workers are being replaced by H-1Bs," said Ron Hira, a public policy professor at Howard University, and a researcher on offshore outsourcing. "Adding to the injustice, American workers are being forced to do 'knowledge transfer,' an ugly euphemism for being forced to train their foreign replacements. Americans should be outraged that most of our politicians have sat idly by while outsourcing firms have hijacked the guest worker programs."

All those flag-waving liars in Congress can shove it. Their idea of "immigration reform" is to increase H1-B visas, while at the same time cutting the social safety nets for all us 50-somethings who built their precious IT infrastructure.

I am going to laugh like crazy when the doctors and lawyers who run this country are all replaced by cheap foreign labor and robots.

Of course, I'll be smiling through my toothless face, peering out from a cardboard box under a crumbling bridge, but hey, at least I'll get the last laugh, right?

[LiberalEsto]

1. My husband works in IT

and has seen many of his co-workers replaced by H1-B people over the years.

He lives in terror of it happening to him, and as a consequence he works his ass off even when he's home, working on production problems at 4 am and staying up until midnight late just to make sure everything is running okay, even though nobody asked him to check.

[ymetca]

2. I spent 13 years

working for a large IT firm, spending many nights in a cold server room, building and maintaining hundreds of servers for a global IT infrastructure. Then one of those trust fund Harvard hedge fund playboys bought the company and proceeded to replace us all with folks from India who couldn't discern a hard drive from a CPU.

After being let go (ironically enough after just getting an exemplary annual review), I spent the next two years trying to find a job during the Great Recession. I finally got a job at a small IT shop making about half of what I was making, and my wife, two teenage sons, and my elderly mother-in-law, are all crammed into a tiny apartment now, scraping by, and thankful just for that. It could be worse. Much worse. I can't imagine what it would be like had McCain or Romney gotten elected.

Meanwhile the bureaucrats in Washington are talking about raising the retirement age and the implementing the TPP. What freakin' planet are these people from? Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders appear to be the only two people who seem to get it --our country is being sold to the highest bidder so the top 1% can buy more yachts and mansions and stash their ill-gotten gains in tax havens overseas.

[LiberalEsto]

3. That is horrible.

My husband's younger brother, who is also in IT, has been on the verge of homelessness several times because of these layoffs. Once he ended up moving in with their elderly father in a senior community. Another time, another brother took him in.

And unfortunately I have read that Hillary Clinton supports increasing H1-B visa quotas.

[vkkv]

4. What is good for people is good for business, but what is good for business doesn't

always work out so well for people.

Isn't the government supposed to PROTECT citizens?

[appalachiablue]

11. It seems our govt. now is highly influenced by the wealthy like the Kochs, Banks & Corporations

that give unlimited campaign funds to politicians esp. through the new Citizens United law (2010). So in effect, many, but not all lawmakers answer to their campaign donors & not to us, we the people. We don't have lobbyists to pay so that they can influence policy decisions like job hiring. Money talks as ever.

These powerful groups represent big business that wants cheap labor to make more profit. Businesses get their way Re hiring for jobs & it's disadvantaging American workers for a couple decades. Offshoring companies, jobs & tax money deeply hurts us & our economy. The new Automation Revolution is taking place now, with recent advances in computers that will replace more workers in the next 20 years & in many occupations.

Thirty years ago US citizens, the people & workers had more power through the strong labor movement especially, which was supportive of the Democratic Party. Now our labor force is based on many lower wage service sector jobs, the Walmart Economy, named for the largest US employer.

To address your point, yes the government lawmakers we elect through our votes are supposed to represent us. But increasingly they favor the money donors. Fortunately it's not all bad & there are many hard working representatives who do work very hard to serve the people. And we need many more of them.

[LittleGirl]

5. I was in IT from '88 to '06

and I got a bachelor degree in management because I saw the writing on the walls. I was working for an international company as well and saw how many BASIS programmers were being hired from India instead of locals. These guys made more than I did yet as soon as their project was done, they went back to India. They couldn't speak Engish and if they could, I couldn't understand it and I grew up with immigrant grandparents. It was sickening to watch. I don't miss it at all.

[Phlem]

6. And I guarantee you that there

are people in DU who think it's just fine and promote it. Hillary supporters of course. The corporate loving "inevitable" won't stop it and might exacerbate it. Combine that with outsourcing and off shoring and we have a recipe for disaster.

But hey, don't take my care for US workers into account because it's all good right?

[valerief]

7. How else can the rich get richer without paying slavier and slavier wages? nt

[valerief]

8. We in IT watched the first wave go to India. Then China. Then pink slips. nt

[freebrew]

9. I saw it in the EE department...

guys(no women) from India, China, Indonesia replacing U.S. electrical engineers. I was in the ME dept.

It didn't take long, soon there were H1-Bs in the design department as well.

Funny, none of them were very knowledgeable in their field, comparatively.

There was never a design by those engineers that didn't have to be redone.

At least they were saving labor costs, sort of.

[MisterP]

10. "STEM shortage!" "Asia's eating our lunch!" "we're spending too much on art, history, and music!"