Microsoft: H-1B workers among those losing jobs [View All]

[ChromeFoundry]

Source: Computer World

No legal obligation to keep U.S. workers over visa holders in layoff, says attorney

January 26, 2009 Microsoft Corp. says it is cutting a "significant number" of foreign workers as part of the layoff of 1,400 employees last week, a number that is due to reach 5,000 over the next 18 months.

But the company isn't detailing how many of the the workers losing their jobs are in the U.S. on a visa.

Microsoft has been urged by Sen. Charles Grassley's (R-Iowa), a leading critic of the H-1B program, to protect the jobs of U.S. workers over foreign workers. In a letter last week to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Grassley demanded that U.S. workers get priority in keeping their jobs.

But there is nothing in the law that requires a company to cut the jobs of H-1B workers before U.S. workers, say experts. David Kussin, an immigration attorney at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP., said, "In fact, the law is very well designed to say that you have to treat H-1Bs the same as U.S. citizens in all regards."

Grassley appears to acknowledge that fact in his letter to Ballmer, arguing that the company has a "moral obligation" to protect U.S. workers. He did not write of a legal obligation.

Microsoft will not disclose the number of H-1B workers on its payroll and it is hard to get a complete picture on any company's visa use from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, but Microsoft is considered a leading H-1B employer.



Read more: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126805&intsrc=hm_list

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This is an update to this article which was speculation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3707220