Senate bill gives Americans preference for tech jobs

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We can argue that tech labor has gotten overpriced in America until...

we're blue in the face, and perhaps it has, but there are SEVERAL truths here:

1. Due to increasing population growth and inflation -- particularly in college tuition -- the cost of living continues to increase, and graduates in all fields need more to have a decent standard of living... plus EVERYONE always wants more, and the market pays what it can bear.

2. So long as the labor market in any particular field is a "level playing field," then things should be fair. That means, among other things, that if companies really CAN'T find qualified Americans for their jobs, they should be REQUIRED to use the exact same hiring requirements for H1-B hires and to pay them the exact same wages while working in America, so there's not even the APPEARANCE they're "cut-rate" employees brought in to undercut American labor costs.

3. Regardless of how much we limit the importation of workers, it seems little if anything is, or even can be done about moving jobs "offshore." When's the last time ANY OF YOU called or asked for online tech support and got someone who WASN'T in India? Some of the companies USED TO have them "Americanize" their names and even teach them to speak English with an American accent, but based on my last few conversations, that's not even happening any more. Not that I've had a particularly bad experience with Manjunesh or Gopi Krishna from Dell, but it was IMMEDIATELY evident they WEREN'T Americans, lol. Even some of their SALES reps are in India (I got referred to one while I was having a bit of trouble when placing my order last fall and I DEMANDED to be transferred back to someone in America, as this guy's accent was so thick I could BARELY understand him).

With VERY MANY components being manufactured in China, or Singapore, or Malaysia, or Indonesia, or wherever, plus so much tech support in those places, there's not much left that's NOT made overseas (I'm guessing some of the few components still not made overseas may be due to U.S. government restrictions about export of technology, like maybe the core processors, or perhaps they'd ALL be "offshore" by now).

As a society, we're doing this to ourselves. It's about personal greed and corporate greed. It's about capitalism, which is not just "free enterprise," but free enterpise dependent on a steady economic growth rate. That steady economic growth rate requires either a continual increase in purchases by existing customers, a continuous increase in number of customers, or both, which is part of the reason NOBODY with any power is pushing population control any more, even though population explosion has a direct correlation to the spiralling pollution and global warming crisis the world is facing.

The people who are running the world, the politicians and the "Military-Industrial-Complex" are for the most part full steam ahead like there's no tomorrow. And even if everyone in the "developed world" stopped tomorrow, China and India, alone (with almost half the world's population between them), are quickly emerging to be far bigger polluters than the rest of us, with far less emphasis on pollution control -- particularly in China.

The thing is, for the people in charge, there IS no tomorrow. By the time the environmental and true economic impacts of all their decisions that are heading us towards sea levels 10s of feet higher in a few decades and possibly 10 billion people by mid-century will all be DEAD (as will I, likely). It's their children, and their children, who will suffer the starvation, floods, mega-hurricanes, countless wars, plagues and whatever else that are bound to emerge once our misadventures on Mother Earth pass the tipping point in another 10 years or so.

But for right now, we just need to make sure there's a fair wage for a fair day's work, and quit importing workers where Americans are available to do the job, so our native sons and daughters can enjoy a decent lifestyle in the few years they have before the fit really starts to hit the shan!

Posted by: Jeff Hayes   Posted on: 04/04/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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