[ale] OT: H1B

[James P. Kinney III]

I have watched this thread with some amusement. So much of what is being
said is passionate and "right" from the speakers viewpoint. The H1B
program was a special favor asked for by the corporate offices to fill a
"need" as it was explained to congress.

It was not a very well defined problem when the H1B program was
initiated. It's not a great way to treat employees, citizen or
immigrant. The problem is not, however with those people at the bottom
of the food chain getting screwed. The problem is with the corporate top
end and the lawmakers they own, er, I mean, support. 

Is the system a good one. No. I seriously doubt that he H1B worker gets
paid as much as a citizen counterpart. Plus, they chip in to public fund
projects like Social Security that they will never be eligible to
collect. The consequences of job termination are quite severe on the H1B
worker. 

For the citizen worker the situation feels pretty hopeless. As older
workers get laid off, or retired early, they get replaced with younger
H1B's. The American worker knows, instinctively, the H1B is not getting
as much money as they are. So they resent the H1B as they are viewed as
threat. Corporate management has not loyalties to their employees and
would clearly prefer to get rid of the workers that cost the most. That
means the American staff must go. Or better yet, outsource the entire
process to another country that will be happy paying 5 engineers what
one American costs.

I got a huge laugh out of the suggestion to outsource the management :)

Personally, I'm waiting for enough geeks, even those getting shafted in
whipping-boy management roles, to get fed up and revolt. The suits and
bean-counters have become hopelessly dependent on the technology that
the geeks craft and nurse and, in far too many cases, keep limping
along. 

Imagine if the geeks at HP or IBM or GM said "Enough is enough!" and
turned of the network and told their management to spend a week doing
their job so they would understand the stress and frustration. 

BTW, Sunday's Userfriendly geek board game really touch a nerve for me.
IT is a truly thankless work environment. If things are going great, no
one knows you exist. If things are falling apart, you on everyone's crap
list since _they_aren't_able_to_do_their_job_! Never mind they brought
in a dirty disk from home with a new virus they downloaded with email.
Which they now sent to the entire department, oops, corporation. It's
your fault for not having the antivirus software up to date even though
the upgrade for that bug isn't out yet.

So let's not go bashing the H1B's for trying to feed their families.
Let's not go bashing the Americans for seeing their promised dreams
going up in smoke.

Instead, let's poke the big, gnarly, blame finger into the eye of the
deserving. The corporate heads who toss out employees like used condoms
and their purchased lackeys in office who write the rules that let them
screw their employees with impunity. 

The way to do that is to use the one voice that they listen to.
$$$MONEY$$$ It's all that matters to them so don't give them any of
yours. It's not very effective, but it sure doesn't bother my conscience
any. 

But an organized, general geek walkout does have a nice feel to it.

-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



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