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Clinton likely to veto immigration bill
By George Leopold
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is expected to veto high-tech immigration legislation if, as expected, Congress approves a compromise bill that waters down worker protection provisions favored by U.S. engineering groups.
While administration officials said they hadn't seen details of compromise legislation announced by lawmakers , they reiterated President Clinton's pledge to veto any law that raised the annual cap on temporary H-1B visas without including adequate safeguards for U.S. workers.
"For the president to sign a bill that increases the cap on the visas it must contain a significant training component and meaningful reform to the H-1B program," a White House source said. Specifically, the White House wants to "ensure that employers recruit U.S. workers before applying for an H-1B worker, and not lay off a U.S. individual in order to hire an H-1B worker," the source said.
The revised bill would raise the annual cap on H-1B visas from the current 65,000 to 85,000 this year, 95,000 in 1999, 105,000 in 2000 and 115,000 in 2001 and 2002. The annual cap would return to 65,000 beginning in 2003.
The Senate approved legislation in May raising the H-1B visa cap in a bill backed by PC and semiconductor industry executives.
The compromise brokered by congressional leaders would require "heavy users" of foreign temporary workers to attest they have recruited American workers and not laid off American workers. Engineering groups complained last week the provision would apply only to employers whose H-1B employees constitute at least 15 percent of their work force.
"They've basically removed most of the [worker] safeguards," said Paul Kostek, president-elect of the Washington-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA.
Other engineering groups said they also oppose the visa compromise, and urged a veto. "The negotiated H-1B bill has no significant U.S. worker protection," said Robert Rivers, chairman of the manpower committee at the American Engineering Association (Fort Worth, Texas). Under the compromise, Rivers added, "Worker protection would be provided for only a small portion of H-1B workers associated with foreign-worker-dominated job shops. All the rest of employers could hire H-1B's without the no-layoff attestations and continue getting by with paying substandard salaries."
Engineering groups also point out that the recent spike in engineering unemployment-a nearly threefold increase between the first and second quarters, to 2.2 percent-means now is not the time to bring more foreign engineers into the United States. Silicon Valley executives countered that the annual cap on H-1B visas was reached in May. This has prevented them from bringing in skilled immigrants to complete projects, they argued in persuading the Senate to raise the H-1B cap.
But IEEE-USA officials said most H-1B visa holders sponsored by high-tech firms are engaged in relatively simple programming tasks such as debugging and testing.
With a final vote coming just before lawmakers head home for their reelection campaigns, the H-1B debate is expected to become an issue in the fall elections.
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old story but another reporter
SEC Tightens Year 2000 Disclosure Guidelines
By Nancy Waitz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal regulators have clamped down on public companies which failed to give a complete picture of their efforts to solve computer glitches expected to arise at the turn of the century.
Unanimous approval of stricter guidelines by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission comes in response to congressional criticism that many companies are providing sketchy information under current agency rules.
U.S. companies are not providing the kind of meaningful information necessary for even the most sophisticated investors to assess Year 2000 readiness, Bob Bennett, chairman of a Senate Banking subcommittee, said at a hearing last month.
Both federal regulators and lawmakers want investors to know what costs and risks companies face as they brace for potential computer chaos expected in 2000.
"We believe that full and fair disclosure includes the company's state of readiness, the costs and risks involved in adequately addressing this issue and the company's contingency plans to handle the likely worst-case scenarios," Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt said.
The guidelines, approved in a form enabling the commission to use them as an enforcement tool, will include information regulatory officials will be looking for in corporate financial documents.
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As I was saying those mutual fund managers will pay attention if the shareholders panic and redeem their shares in a hurry. They will be on the streets without a job.
Most in-house efforts are not going anywhere. Heard that Bank of America is still testing computers for y2k compliance using labor at $15/hr at 10-15 machines/day. Some others are still in the assessment stage and have a grand plan of correct, test and get ready by Nov 1999 - a popular approach, as if there is unlimited labor pool is just waiting outside their gates and ready to go to work when Feb 99 (or some such date) the companies issue the contract.
Note: Satish Sanan's talk in Chicago on his vision of IT's future. That is where companies like IMRS, CBSL, MAST, SEEC, ALYD, COGIF, SPNSF, etc. should be heading. Y2K is just a quick opportunity to make some money to finance the real IT business in post-2000: e commerce, web migration combined with SAP and BAAN, network maintenance, etc. These analysts do not have a clue.
The trained programmer pool some of these companies have, on global basis, will become the most critical resource. How come the mutual fund managers does not have the brain to figure this out? They make their money the easy way, without thinking, on huge dollar volume. If you and I had millions to invest, we can make money easily on a 1/2 to 1 point move every single day. Ram |
