Fed Judge Rules: Disney Can Willy-Nilly Replace Americans With H-1B Workers

This galls me: A Florida judge has ruled by technicality that Disney violated no labor laws. Disney used an intermediary firm to circumvent laws: Disney fired, but the intermediary hired, therefore no violation. Link

[added: NYT link]

Jeff Sessions Challenges Speaker Paul Ryan......Unfortunately it is not to a duel!

Breibart.comby  JULIA HAHN18 Dec 2015Washington D.C.

While members of House Freedom Caucus are giving 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

58%

 a public pass on the omnibus, populist thought leader 

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

80%

 is weighing in strongly. Sessions, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chided Ryan for making publicly false statements about the contents of the legislation— quoting from Ryan’s declarations during a Thursday appearance on Michael Medved’s radio show.

Ted Cruz Supports Expanded H-1B Visa Programs?

If true, his candidacy is dead to me. It means that he buys the lies told to him by the likes of Sugar Mountain. That's one to scratch off my list for President. Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.

The Magic Kingdom in Peril 2.0

(this post is a continuation-in-part of this one)

People who lost jobs there said they had to sit with immigrants from India, some on temporary work visas known as H-1B, and teach them to perform their jobs as a condition for receiving severance. But it remained unclear on Tuesday who had initiated the change of strategy at Disney/ABC or whether it was part of a larger change in direction, because Disney executives declined to discuss it.  h/t: r,l

Read the whole thing. I think the un- and under-employment situation will be the biggest driver of cross-party politics-- i.e., making people willing to cross party lines and to vote against the promulgators of open borders and limitless H-1B visas.

The Magic Kingdom In Peril

Disney CEO Bob Iger is one of eight co-chairs of the Partnership for a New American Economy, a leading group advocating for an increase in the H-1B visa cap. Last Friday, this partnership was a sponsor of an H-1B briefing at the U.S. Capitol for congressional staffers. The briefing was closed to the press.

Looking back through the comments on posts tagged H-1B visas, I can tell that the topic is contentious here at Lem's, with most people falling on the side of "we need more H-1B visas because it displaces all the lazy overpaid people. The logic is that it's purely market correction.

OK then. Consider the world to be at disequilibrium (look up that term if it befuddles you) with US borders being an artificial barrier. A much greater concentration of skilled workers exists outside the borders of the US and they are being kept out, artificially. Why not let those barriers down more uniformly so that foreign capital and influence can flow freely here too so that Bob Iger can feel a little anxious about his job too?

Retired people and people employed by government tend to be immune to the effects of H-1B visas. The former group because their income is often tied to retirement stock portfolios which benefit from open doors policies and the latter group because government work at all levels is a great guild which up until now, mostly excludes H-1B workers. Yet these two groups seem to populate comment forums on the internet.

[UPDATE]  America, you have been warned: link

"Why should I lose my job when the work still needs to be done?..."

"Why is the government doing this to me and my family?"

You've spent twenty plus years loyally working in Information Technology (IT) for Southern California Edison, and eighteen months ago your boss tells you that they are going to study outsourcing but not to worry, "your position is safe." On the one hand you are worried because you know many stories of American IT workers losing their jobs to outsourcing, but on the other you feel comforted that you've been loyal to SCE and provide a critical service. Then eight months ago they tell you that they are outsourcing most IT functions and that they want you, get this, to train your guest worker replacement. If you say no, SCE will terminate you with cause and you would lose not only a severance package but also eligibility for unemployment insurance. This is the common story I heard from many workers at SCE.

The work that the 400 SCE IT employees do isn't disappearing, instead it and their jobs are being taken over by foreign guest workers here on H-1B visas. Those guest workers are employed by the two leading India-based outsourcing firms, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys. (read more)

Update On America's "STEM Crisis"

[This post is a continuation-in-part of a prior post here: 'STEM Crisis' In American Workforce May Not Be Real]

New legislation proposing to raise the number of H-1B visas for science and technology workers has lots of bipartisan support: Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are on board. Link

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is having none of it:

[A] stunning 3 in 4 Americans with a STEM degree do not hold a job in a STEM field—that’s a pool of more than 11 million Americans with STEM qualifications who lack STEM employment.

It is understandable why these corporations push for legislation that will flood the labor market and keep pay low; what is not understandable is why we would ever consider advancing legislation that provides jobs for the citizens of other countries at the expense of our own. Who do we work for?

Democrats and a silent majority of Republicans are squeezing the American middle class from the bottom by holding out essentially limitless importation of unskilled labor; now Republicans and a silent* majority of Democrats are squeezing the American middle class at the top by offering essentially limitless importation of highly-skilled labor.
________________________
*Except for that Sugar Mountain** chap, who is a loudmouth.
**Zuckerberg means "Sugar Mountain" in German

'STEM Crisis' In American Workforce May Not Be Real

'The vast majority of workers who have been trained in science and engineering are not currently working in a STEM occupation,' the Census Bureau report said. In fact, an average of just 26 percent of science and engineering graduates, aged 25 to 64, worked in a STEM occupation in 2011, instead working in jobs such as management, health care, law, education, social work, accounting and counseling.  Link

There are lots of other choice phrases and truths at the link.

In the name of efficient economics, we do import STEM workers -- not because they are better than American workers but because they will often work for less, and employers get leverage, viz. visas. This is a brutal and harsh reality but also one which affects the on-going and relentless push for more H1-B visas. The policy figures into the grand immigration debate, but at the "high end" rather than the "low end."