Engineers Have Few Friends in Washington
- by Richard F. Tax

In September, 1998 our Congressional representatives voted on two pieces of legislation that are significant and detrimental to members of the engineering community. We thought you might be interested in the legislation and how your New Jersey representatives voted. You may want to call their offices, both local and in Washington, to express your gratitude or other sentiments.

First, about this legislation to increase the number of H1-B visas for imported engineers, software people, information technologists, etc. The final results of the legislation will increase the number of H1-B visas from 195,000 to 337,000 over the next three years or a total increase of 142,000. Each H1-B import may stay and work for 6 years for a total of 2,022,000 man years of Americans being deprived of opportunities to earn a living and enhance their skill level.

HR3736, a Republican introduced Bill was up against a threatened veto by the Whitehouse which brought down some of the original numbers, but offered little protection for US workers. The Watt Amendment offered some protection, but both Bills were based on false manpower shortage reports. President Clinton had the opportunity to veto the legislation, but instead followed up his lack of action with a trip to Silicon Valley to pick up 4 Megabucks of party contributions from Corporate America.

How our representatives, of both parties, could support such blatant legislation is beyond my comprehension. It was supported only by fabrications and corporate American dollars.

Robert Rivers, a Fellow of the IEEE, past member of IEEE-USA's Workforce Committee, Chairman of the Manpower Committee of the American Engineering Association, and considered an expert in engineering manpower issues writes:

"The H-1B visa expansion bill is a scam perpetrated upon Congress and US citizens." He continues with: "The lobbying program by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) for expansion of H-1B visas is based on three false premises. Two ITAA sponsored "shortage" surveys that have been discredited by the GAO and the disclosure that working contract personnel were classified as job vacancies. The knowing use of previous Computer Science declines in numbers of new graduates and failure to mention markedly increasing enrollments was an exercise in obfuscation.

The first ITAA survey was conducted by a journalist Stuart Anderson and the GAO discredited that survey. The second survey was conducted by a Virginia Tech graduate student with no past surveying experience. The GAO discredited that survey.

The whole program was devised by ITAA, a pseudo professional group not of Information Technologists, but of Corporate America, to convince the press and Congress that the sky would fall if we didn't increase the H1-B program. ITAA starting with their defective 190,000 job vacancies report and continued with their discredited 346,000 vacancy Virginia Tech survey.

Contrasting the ITAA's survey pronouncements is the professional Louis Harris & Associates survey commissioned by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA) that found "82% of a national cross section of 1000 adults opposed "Congress allowing US companies to sponsor 190,000 additional foreign technical workers as employees for up to 6 years." Some 86% concurred with the statement; "US companies should train US workers to perform jobs in some technical fields, even if it is faster and less expensive to fill the jobs with foreign professionals."

Rivers' concludes: "Summarizing; we don't need the H-1Bs now, we don't need them in the long run, and we certainly don't need any without effective attestations to protect US workers. We need to give US citizens, our parents, our children, our friends and associates a shot at the good jobs."

More information on how the rest of the Congress voted can be found on the WEB at www.numbersusa.com. AEA is at www.aea.org. IEEE-USA is at (202) 785-0017

For supporting documentation please contact Robert A. Rivers, Chair, American Engineering Association, Manpower Committee. T 978-544-3942, Fax 978-544-9902. Richard Tax was past chairman of the North Jersey Section and is presently Vice President of the American Engineering Association, Inc.


Representatives Votes on H.R. 3736 and the Watt Amendment
				Watt Amendment		Modified HR3736 Smith Bill
First	Last	Dist	Pty	PRO	CON	PRO	CON
Donald	Payne	10TH	D	x		x
Rodney	Frelinghuysen	11TH	R		x	x
Mike	Pappas	12TH	R		x	x
Robert	Menendez	13TH	D	x		x
Robert	Andrews	1ST	D	x			x
Frank	LoBiondo	2ND	R		x		x
James	Saxton	3RD	R		x	x
Christopher	Smith	4TH	R		x		x
Marge	Roukema	5TH	R		x	x
Frank	Pallone	6TH	D	x		x
Robert	Franks	7TH	R		x		x
William	Pascrell	8TH	R	x		x
Steven	Rothman	9TH	D				x

 

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