Hi Ten, RE: "Blame the Foreign Guy"
You hit it on the head.
I saw the article. The SJMN article made no mention about how high-tech H1B's earn their way into this country only if they are their country's best and brightest, and have a unique skill to offer. The San Jose Mercury News, in this article, abandoned the voice of the legally employed high-tech immigrants in this country by not conveying this position. Absolutely no perspective from the H1B guys they mentioned in the article (nor perspective from any other H1Bs.)
The article basically gave one the impression that Sun was laying off USA people on the basis of their American citizenship (when in fact, Sun doesn't even track status such as this when they do layoffs).
The article said you have to lay someone off based upon qualifications. But someone could have excellent qualifications (i.e. credentials), yet have a lousy performance. Since when is it illegal to lay someone off based upon the criteria of need and performance?
From your other post, RE: "doing more for less" & "opportunity"
Side note: it is illegal to hire H1B's in the USA on the basis of lower pay. So, it's not okay to hire an H1B on the basis of doing more for less. While one immigrant might call this opportunity, the bottom line is, it's illegal to do so, regardless of what one may perceive. Intel probably has a class on this.
The H1B must show a unique skill or talent. Many aspects of software development have been classified as a unique skill. H1B's generally are a foreign country's most brightest talent, trained in highly skilled areas such as engineering, which is why they get accepted into this country to work. In this economy, many of the large Silicon Valley companies have stopped hiring H1Bs because they're laying off. The H1B's, in Sun's group that had the cuts mentioned in the article, were folks that obviously had been at the job since the boom, when there was no supply of talented engineers, not hired during the bust to replace American workers.
Regards,
Amy J |
