Wipro's Azim Premji - 'The man who wants to take your jobs'

[g.minks at verizon.net (Gina Minks)]

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From: Mike Small <smallm at panix.com>
Date: 2004/03/22 Mon PM 12:53:30 EST
To: discuss at blu.org
Subject: Re: Wipro's Azim Premji - 'The man who wants to take your jobs'



>Why is it shameful?  This is the part of the argument >I don't quite get (granted, I'm not an American and >have a strong aversion to nationalism). 

Saying that this practice is shameful has nothing to do with nationalism. The point is that people are being brought into this country on visas that were designed to go to companies who needed specialized labor that the local economies could not provide. Companies are exploiting this program to lower wages in the US. If you look through the LCA database, there are many examples of how immigrants are not paid the prevailing wage. There are many documented cases of how the workers on these visas are worked harder and paid less, all the time with the threat of deportation held over their heads. 

At the same time, there are more than enough skilled workers to fill these positions. Instead of hiring local skilled workers, employers are choosing to exploit the system for their own good. That is what is shameful. US workers are not even being given the chance to compete for the jobs that are left in this country. Nationalistic would be saying, our country's workers are the best, we should have those jobs (look in the Indian press to see which group is the one using that rhetoric).

>Seems like the only difference between 
>corporations lobbying for things to work in their >favour and workers 
>doing it, in this case, is how widely the booty >spread around.  Either 
>way we're talking about one group of people pushing >their 
>interests at the expense of another group.
problem is, no one is speaking for the workers. We don't have the millions of dollars to pay the ITAA to stand up in Congress to represent us, we have to trust that writing letters and calling our reps will do the trick.
- Mike
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