<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1716 -- 6/26/2007 >>>>>
The firestorm over the youtube videos continues.
Article 1:
http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2007/db20070621
_912042.htm
Outsourcing: How to Skirt the Law
Article 2:
http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200000148
Lawyer Group Responds To Controversial YouTube Video
Article 3:
http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/new_singleEdit.asp?individua
l_SQL=6%2F25%2F2007%4014924_Public_.htm
Pa. law firm's immigration talk hits YouTube; U.S. senator demands
investigation
Article 4:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-flzcareers25nbjun25,0,2211382
.story?coll=sfla-business-headlines
Jobs of future hard to identify
Article 5:
http://vdare.com/roberts/070623_economy.htm
Goodbye To The City Upon A Hill And To Its Fabled Economy
Article 6:
http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_173211114.html
YouTube Video On Foreign Workers Stirs Debate
Article 7:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07173/796195-28.stm
City law firm's immigration video sparks an Internet firestorm
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2007/db20070621
_912042.htm
Top News June 22, 2007, 12:01AM EST text size: TT
Outsourcing: How to Skirt the Law
Want to hire cheaper foreign workers instead of Americans? A lawyer tells
you how to game the immigration systemand it's all on YouTube
by Moira Herbst
The video looks as though it could have been shot at almost any sleepy
corporate seminar in the country, with one camera panning between a man in
a suit and tie standing at a podium and others seated nearby. But the
dialogue is riveting: It's a group of lawyers openly discussing strategies
for helping their clients pretend that they're trying to recruit American
workers -- as required by law -- while they, in fact, hire cheaper foreign
workers.
"[O]ur goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker,"
says Lawrence Lebowitz, director of marketing for the Pittsburgh law firm
Cohen & Grigsby, before an audience of employers at the firm's conference.
The seminar provides details on how employers can meet the government's
requirements for the Permanent Labor Certificate program (PERM), which lets
employers sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency if they can
demonstrate no U.S. worker can fill a job. The trick, according to Cohen &
Grigsby attorneys, is to only go through the motions of hiring Americans
without ever intending to.
The video, which has been posted on YouTube (GOOG), is now sparking a sharp
backlash. On June 21, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Representative
Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) fired off a letter to Cohen & Grigsby demanding an
explanation for its advice, as well as going so far as to ask for the names
of its clients. "Your firm's video advises employers how to hire only
foreign labor, while making it nearly impossible for a qualified American
worker to get a job," they wrote. "We look forward to hearing from you on
how such advice is ethical and does not undermine the programs by enticing
fraud and misuse." (See the lawmakers' letter here.) A public relations
firm representing Cohen & Grigsby did not return phone calls seeking
comment.
Temp Work Program Under Fire
The same day, the legislators wrote a separate letter to Labor Secretary
Elaine Chao. They asked for information about how the government is
managing the program for temporary work visas, known as H-1Bs. The workers
that are sponsored for permanent residency typically come into the country
on such temporary visas. "[W]e are concerned that companies are abusing the
H-1B visa program," the lawmakers write. "The video explicitly shows how
attorneys are aiding companies in this effort." Grassley and Smith then
voice concern about the Labor Dept.'s failure to monitor fraud in the visa
system, and they request a breakdown of exactly how anti-fraud dollars are
spent.
The video may complicate the prospects for immigration reform this year.
While most of the debate has been over what to do about low-skilled
workers, including the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.,
the policies for high-skilled workers are now becoming controversial, too.
Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), Google (GOOG), Oracle (ORCL), Motorola
(MOT), and a host of other leading technology companies have called for new
policies to make it easier for skilled workers to come into the U.S.,
including by making available more H-1B visas.
But the temporary worker program has come under heavy fire this year. The
program was originally set up to help U.S. companies hire foreign workers
with specialized skills that the companies couldn't find among American
workers. Now, however, the most active users of the program have become
outsourcing companies, particularly those from India, including Infosys
Technologies (INFY), Wipro (WIT), and Satyam Computer Services (SAY). That
has led critics such as Grassley to question whether the U.S. program is
being used to facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs (see
BusinessWeek.com, 5/15/07, "Crackdown on Indian Outsourcing Firms").
Tech Labor Shortage Called a Myth
The Cohen & Grigsby video was originally posted online by the law firm
itself as a way to promote the conference. Then Kim Berry, president of the
Programmers Guild, an advocacy group for U.S. tech workers, took excerpts
of the footage, edited them into a five-minute clip, and posted it on
YouTube. The video has received tens of thousands of views so far.
Berry says the video is not exceptional, but rather exemplifies the way
employers are systematically abusing the H-1B visa program for high-skilled
workers to avoid hiring Americans who demand higher salaries. "The idea
that there's a labor shortage in the tech sector is a myth," says Berry.
"Hundreds of thousands of qualified Americans can't find work as visa
workers continue to fill positions."
Employers don't have to prove that they can't hire Americans to employ an
H-1B visa worker. But if they want to sponsor that worker for permanent
residency, then they need to take a series of steps to prove no U.S. worker
is qualified, including placing ads in newspapers, reviewing résumés,
and interviewing potential candidates. That employers appear to be gaming
that part of the immigration system, with its higher hurdles, is
disconcerting to some experts. "What's disturbing about this from a public
policy standpoint is that the PERM is supposed to be the gold standard,"
says Ron Hira, professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of
Technology. "If you can circumvent those rules, it begs the question of
what's going on elsewhere."
Brendan Boyd, a computer programmer in Austin, Tex., is one out-of-work
American who is upset about the country's work policies. He was laid off
from a freelance position at Raytheon (RTN) last fall and has since been
unable to find work. "I've been on 15 or 20 interviews in the past few
months, and I can tell they're phony," says Boyd. "They ask overly simple
questions and don't even ask me about my tech qualifications. It's a sham."
Join a debate about overseas outsourcing.
Herbst is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com in New York.
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200000148
Lawyer Group Responds To Controversial YouTube Video
The American Immigration Lawyers Association advises employers to meet the
legal requirements when hiring foreign nationals, even if the process is
"far from perfect."
By Mary Hayes Weier, InformationWeek
June 22, 2007
The American Immigration Lawyers Association released a statement Friday
about practices employers must take before hiring foreign nationals
following a controversial YouTube video.
The association is "dedicated to the rule of law and to the good faith
application of our laws, and condemns the use of charade or manipulation to
achieve regulatory compliance," begins the statement. "The association is
committed to the highest standards of excellence and ethics in immigration
practice and does its utmost to educate its members about these standards."
On Monday, InformationWeek reported that the law firm of Cohen & Grigsby
posted video from a seminar on YouTube that shows attorneys advising
clients on how to minimally advertise job postings to best avoid hearing
from "qualified and interested" U.S. workers. Federal law requires that an
employer make a permanent job posting available to qualified U.S. citizens
before hiring a foreign national.
The firm later removed the video, but not before the Programmers Guild, a
group of IT professionals critical of U.S. immigration policy, recorded and
ran their own, edited version of it on YouTube.
In a statement released Friday, the firm said, "Cohen & Grigsby has a
responsibility to ensure that our clients are both fully aware of and
compliant with all of the relevant laws governing the employment of
international workers. To that point, we stand by the substance of our
recent Immigration Law Update Seminar. We regret the choice of words that
was used during a small segment of the seminar. It is unfortunate that
these statements have been commandeered and misused, which runs contrary to
our intent."
Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent
a letter to the firm asking for records of people their firm and its
clients have hired using H-1B visas, and a letter to U.S. Department of
Labor requesting an investigation into the firm's practices.
The association's letter states that to "protect U.S. workers from unfair
employment practices and protect foreign workers from exploitation and
abuse," employers seeking to hire foreign nationals for a permanent job
should include the following steps in the labor certification process
(which, by the way, is not a requirement for an H-1B visa):
Six different forms of recruitment, including print ads in
widely-circulated Sunday newspapers and 30-day job postings with state
labor agencies.
A requirement that the employer obtain confirmation of the prevailing wage
for the position and offer and pay at least that wage.
Compliance records that include the employer's review of applicants for the
position.
Meanwhile, the association seeks to reassure employers that it understands
their pain. "The permanent labor certification process is far from perfect.
Its requirements are mechanical, and generally do not reflect how employers
ordinarily recruit for positions," the statement reads. "While imperfect,
the labor certification requirements provide an important check and balance
on employers who seek highly qualified workers to fill important positions
in their companies."
The association also criticized a proposed point system being debated in
Congress as part of immigration reform that would give immigrants
preferential treatment based on such things as English fluency and
education, and ultimately employers less flexibility in who they want to
hire.
"An employer/employee relationship combined with a strong labor market test
is the best protection for all workers, " the statement reads. "Reforms to
our immigration system must preserve and protect this important nexus and
vital worker protection. De-coupling the immigration process from any
grounding in an employer relationship and establishing a 'point system'
that would require no proof of a labor shortage in the occupation, as
contemplated by the immigration bill currently pending in the U.S. Senate,
is an invitation to a disastrous immigration policy."
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/new_singleEdit.asp?individua
l_SQL=6%2F25%2F2007%4014924_Public_.htm
Monday, June 25, 2007
Pa. law firm's immigration talk hits YouTube; U.S. senator demands
investigation
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A U.S. senator wants an investigation into the ethics
of a law firm whose YouTube video highlights how to circumvent the law to
obtain visas for foreign employees.
Attorneys say it's not illegal -- but Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has
asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to examine the firm's tactics.
The video shows attorneys for Cohen & Grigsby, one of the largest law firms
in Pittsburgh, explaining at a conference on immigration how to obey laws
that require Americans be given top priority for jobs while still ensuring
foreigners are hired.
"The goal here of course is to meet the requirements, number one, but also
do so as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal. And our goal
is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker," Lawrence
Lebowitz, the firm's vice president of marketing, told the audience in May.
Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee's immigration
subcommittee, sent a letter to Cohen & Grigsby, demanding to know how many
visa petitions have been filed by the firm in the past five years. He
denounced the firm's tactics as discrimination.
Initially, Cohen & Grigsby placed footage from the conference on YouTube.
Then the Programmers Guild, a group that opposes current immigration laws,
edited it, added background music and uploaded its version to the
video-sharing site.
"The attorneys aren't doing anything illegal," said Kim Berry, president of
the Programmers Guild. "There is something wrong with the law."
Cohen & Grigsby said in a statement that it stood by the substance of the
talk, but regretted "the choice of words that was used during a small
segment of the seminar." The firm added that its statements had been
"commandeered and misused."
The video clip appears to confirm the suspicions of many who accuse
companies of placing want-ads in newspapers to show the Department of Labor
it is recruiting Americans, knowing all along that they won't attract
qualified applicants.
Palma Yanni, a Washington, D.C.-based immigration lawyer, said the
department requires companies to make a good-faith effort to hire an
American before applying for a work visa for a foreigner.
"By encouraging employers not to make a good-faith effort, they are
violating the rules, period," Yanni said of Cohen & Grigsby's tactics.
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-flzcareers25nbjun25,0,2211382
.story?coll=sfla-business-headlines
Jobs of future hard to identify
My advice: Take in all the projections you can find and season with a grain
of salt.
June 25, 2007
DEAR JOYCE: I have volunteered to give a presentation on promising new
careers and careers that are being reinvented at my son's high school in
the fall. Help me out.
Speaking informally, a new or emerging occupation is one that has blossomed
fairly recently, often within the last 10 years. Examples: global
positioning systems technician, electronic commerce specialist and
ergonomist.
An evolving occupation is one that has existed for some time and is
reinventing itself or adding new specialties. A nurse specializes to become
a forensic nurse. A linguist adds computer expertise and becomes a
computational linguist. An automotive service technician concentrates on
hybrids and becomes an alternative fuels technician.
Work content of an occupation changes as tools and technology become
available; teachers teach using computers as well as chalkboards. And the
opposite: The title of an occupation may change although its updated tasks
are the same; fiber optics engineers and radio frequency engineers are
usually considered electrical engineering specialties rather than distinct
occupations.
Most new and emerging occupations are small and will not grow up to offer
large numbers of jobs. The horticulture therapy aide was cited as emerging
in 1976; its status remains unchanged today. So we already know about most
of the promising careers of the future, from health care to
entrepreneurship. But uncertainties grow deeper than ever.
While profitable-sounding occupations such as fusion engineer, leisure
consultant and robot technician appear on many forecasting lists, such
opportunities may be scarcer than we think if the infrastructure of good
jobs for U.S. workers continues to fray.
Any version of "It's a waste of time to predict what your kid will grow up
to do because most likely the job hasn't been invented yet," has become a
cliche. The good-old-Yankee-ingenuity-to-the-rescue perspective is now
endangered by a smudge on the nation's crystal ball. The smudge is the
growing job drain for U.S. workers -- a factor that makes practical
career forecasting iffier than ever these days. Why?
U.S. technology is being washed offshore and awarded to cheaper labor at
prices that wouldn't pay American workers' rent, much less mortgages. A
soon-to-be published paper by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment
Research will report new evidence suggesting that moving jobs overseas has
hurt the U.S. economy considerably more than has been suggested by U.S.
Department of Labor numbers.
On the high end, suppose that your child, having noted that health care is
a prosperous career choice, wants to become a radiologist. A number of U.S.
hospitals now outsource the reading of CAT scans to radiologists in India
and Australia, usually overnight. Americans are also traveling outside the
U.S for dentistry and surgery. How will globalization affect future
health-care worker demand in this country even as legions of Baby Boomers
age and require health services?
And when jobs are not offshored, young, pliant and cheaper workers --
driving down American wages and working conditions -- are brought onshore
through a half-dozen visa programs, especially H1-B visas aimed at
information technology professionals.
An uproar last week centered on grainy seminar videos posted on the
file-sharing site YouTube by a Pittsburgh immigration law firm. The seminar
educated employers on the nitty-gritty of how to use legal loopholes to
ensure foreign workers get the jobs and Americans don't. In other words,
the legal eagles explained exactly how to beat the system protecting U.S.
citizens -- Americans shafting American workers.
The shocker came when the seminar moderator, a partner in the law firm,
admitted: "Our goal is clearly NOT to find a qualified and interested U.S.
worker." One recommended tactic: Avoid advertising jobs in certain media
that attract lots of qualified U.S. job seekers. Even more disturbing was
University of California, Davis, computer science professor Norman
Matloff's observation that the seminar under fire was not produced by a
rogue law firm: "What this firm is doing is legal and standard."
The law firm has pulled the offensive YouTube videos.
A fountain of virtually all occupational information is the government's
Occupational Outlook Handbook, free online at www.bls.gov/oco. Contacts for
state and local forecasts appear in the opening section of the Handbook.
Magazines, including Money, U.S. News & World Report and Forbes, print
occasional or annual best-job lists.
My advice: Take in all the projections you can find and season with a grain
of salt. There are more scary wild cards in today's occupational stew than
I have seen in my many years of covering careers.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://vdare.com/roberts/070623_economy.htm
June 23, 2007
Goodbye To The City Upon A Hill And To Its Fabled Economy
By Paul Craig Roberts
"We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us."
John Winthrop
America is being destroyed. Many Americans are unaware, others are
indifferent, and some intend it.
The destruction is across the board: the political and constitutional
system, the economy, social institutions including the family itself,
citizenship, and the character and morality of the American people.
Those who rely on the Internet for information are aware that the Bush
regime has successfully assaulted the separation of powers and civil
liberty. Both Bush and Cheney claim that they are not bound by laws that
impinge on their freedom of action or that interfere with their ideas of
the power of their offices. Bush has issued presidential directives that
permit him to make himself a dictator by declaring a national emergency.
Cheney asserts that his handling of secret documents is not subject to
oversight or investigation or bound by a presidential order governing the
protection of classified information.
The foundation of social organization -- marriage, family, and parental
control over children -- is disintegrating.
Mass unassimilated and illegal immigration has destroyed the meaning of
American citizenship and forced large numbers of Americans into
unemployment. For example, Steve Camarota at the Center for Immigration
Studies reported on June 20 that state employment data show that in the
first six years of the 21st century 218,000 high school graduates in the
state of Georgia have been employment- displaced by immigrants. [
Employment Down Among Natives In Georgia]Moreover, wages have stagnated,
putting the lie to the claim that there is a shortage of workers. If there
were a labor shortage, wages would be bid up and rising.
Many Americans are unconcerned that the US government in behalf of an
undeclared agenda has invaded two countries, killed hundreds of thousands
of foreign civilians, produced 4 million Iraqi refugees, rejected the
Geneva Conventions and reverted to medieval torture dungeons. It does not
trouble them that their government blocked ceasefires and UN resolutions so
that Israel could bomb and murder Lebanese civilians and destroy the
country's infrastructure.
Americans, whose ethical behavior toward others was once reinforced by
having to look oneself in the mirror, now have a different ethos. Many
cannot look themselves in the mirror unless they have pulled a fast one and
advanced themselves at someone else's expense. It is not only crooked
prosecutors, such as Michael Nifong, who get their jollies from destroying
their fellow citizens.
A Google search will call up enough information to make the case for these
points many times over. However, the destruction of the US economy, though
far advanced, is still largely unknown. It is to this subject that we turn.
For a number of years Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services and I
have documented from BLS nonfarm payroll jobs data that the US economy in
the 21st century no longer creates net new jobs in tradable goods and
services. In the 21st century, job growth in "the world's only
superpower" has a definite third world flavor. US job growth has been
limited to domestic services that cannot be moved offshore, such as
waitresses and bartenders and health and social services.
These are not jobs that comprise ladders of upward mobility. Income
inequality is worsening, and education is no longer the answer.
The problem is that middle class jobs, both in manufacturing and in
professional occupations such as engineering, are being offshored as
corporations replace their American workforces with foreigners. I have
called jobs offshoring "virtual immigration."
The latest bombshell is that even those professional jobs that remain
located in America are not safe. There is a vast industry of immigration
law firms that enable American corporations to replace their American
workers with foreigners brought in on work visas.
For years Americans have been told that work visas are only issued in cases
where there are no Americans with the necessary skills to fill the jobs.
Americans have been reassured that safeguards are in place to prevent US
companies from using the work visas to replace their American employees
with foreigners paid below the prevailing US wage. Now, thanks to a video
placed on "YouTube" by a US law firm, Cohen & Grigsby, marketing its
services, we now know that it is easy for US companies to legally evade the
"safeguards" and to replace their American employees with lower paid
foreigners.
The video shows Lawrence Lebowitz, [send him mail] Vice President for
Marketing for the law firm of Cohen & Grigsby, together with a panel of the
law firm's attorneys, explaining to an audience of employers how to use
loopholes in the laws governing the work visas to hire foreign workers in
place of Americans. Lebowitz says, "our goal is clearly, not to find a
qualified and interested US worker."
Cohen & Grigsby's legal experts describe the strategy for ensuring that
no American firm has to hire an American. The advertising requirements can
be met by advertising the job in obscure or ethnic newspapers in locations
where there are no likely job candidates. If a qualified American candidate
turns up, "have the manager of that specific position step in and . . . go
through the whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify them for this
position -- in most cases there doesn't seem to be a problem."
The "prevailing wage" requirement is evaded, for example, by making the
offered salary and raises contingent on receipt of the green card, usually
3 or 4 years away, or by disguising the job by understating the job
requirements. For example, a job requiring an advanced degree can be listed
as requiring a bachelor's degree, but filled with a foreigner with a
higher degree. As the higher degree is not listed as a job requirement, the
employer is able to secure the foreign employee below the prevailing wage.
University of California computer science professor Norman Matloff has an
excellent presentation available at his online site about the lack of
impediments to the ability of US firms to replace their American employees
with foreigners. Matloff says to keep in mind that Cohen & Grigsby "is NOT
a rogue law firm." The advice provided by Cohen & Grigsby is the standard
advice given by the hoards of immigration attorneys who are personally
cleaning up by putting Americans out of work.
Except for Lou Dobbs on CNN, the US TV and print media have so far ignored
the astounding story. Where are the headlines: "US Jobs: No American Need
Apply"?
Chances are high that economists will ignore the story also. Economists
have made fools of themselves with their hyped claims that jobs offshoring
is a great benefit to America and that any attempt to stop it would bring
hardship, failed companies, and lost American jobs. When a profession gets
egg all over its face, it closes ranks and goes into denial.
Unlike the post-depression generation of US economists, recent generations
of economists have been indoctrinated with confidence in business. They
believe that business knows best and that the free market will prevent or
correct any mistakes. Many economists today are well paid shills for
special interests. Others, simply careless, have assumed that statistical
measures of high rates of US productivity and GDP growth were indications
of the benefits that offshoring was bringing to Americans.
Only a few economists, such as myself and Charles McMillion, noticed the
inconsistency between alleged high rates of productivity and GDP growth on
one hand and stagnant real median incomes and rising income inequality on
the other. Somehow the US economy was having GDP and productivity growth
that was not showing up in growth in the incomes of Americans.
Thanks to economist Susan N. Houseman and the March 22 issue of Business
Week, we now know, as I reported in the print edition of CounterPunch (June
1-15, 2007) and online at VDARE.com, that much of the growth in US
productivity and GDP was an illusion created by statistics that mistakenly
attributed productivity gains achieved abroad to the US economy.
With the ladders of upward mobility for Americans dismantled by offshoring
and work visas, with the very real problems in mortgage and housing
markets, with the very real stress put on the US dollar's reserve
currency role by Bush's trillion dollar war that is financed by
foreigners, with the downward revisions in US GDP and productivity growth
that are now mandatory, and with a variety of other problems that I
haven't the space to deal with, the fabled US economy is a thing of the
past.
Just like America's prestige. Just like the world's goodwill toward
America. Just like American liberty.
The eyes of all peoples are still upon us, only for different reasons. Whom
will we attack next? When will we be bankrupt? What good is the American
consumer market when the mass of the people are employed in third world
jobs? How much longer will those trillions of dollars held by foreign
governments be worth anything? How long before Americans will be knocking
on European doors claiming political asylum?
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_173211114.html
Jun 22, 2007 7:00 pm US/Pacific
YouTube Video On Foreign Workers Stirs Debate
Sue Kwon
Reporting
(CBS 5) A video posted on YouTube is stirring anger and debate in Silicon
Valley. It shows attorneys with Cohen & Grigsby telling their corporate
clients how to get around Federal rules around hiring foreign workers.
"Our goal is not to find a qualified U.S. worker," the attorney at the
podium said in the video. "That, in a sense, sounds funny but that is what
we are trying to do here."
It's no secret foreign workers often come highly skilled with lower
salaries. A system administrator who wanted to be identified only as "Dave"
defended outsourcing in the technology industry.
"My company has job openings and it's hard to find good people, even junior
people not just senior people," he said.
The Programmers Guild is an anti-outsourcing group with 1,500 members says
nonsense. The group edited and reposted the law firm's clips on YouTube
after the law firm pulled down video of the full session.
"We estimate tens of thousands of Americans lose job opportunities to the
tactics shown in that Cohen & Grigsby video," said Kim Berry, President of
the Programmers Guild.
Kim says the video has prompted 2 lawmakers to call on Labor Secretary
Elaine Chao to investigate unfair practices where companies call for
applications with no intent to hire close to home.
The attorney in the video is heard saying. "If necessary, you (companies)
have to schedule an interview to find a legal basis to disqualify them (US
applicants) for this position. In most cases this doesn't seem to be a
problem."
Cohen & Grigsby would not allow CBS5 to view the session in its entirety
and issued a statement.
"We regret the choice of words that was used during a small segment of the
seminar," the statement said. "It is unfortunate that these statements have
been commandeered and misused, which runs contrary to our intent."
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07173/796195-28.stm
City law firm's immigration video sparks an Internet firestorm
Friday, June 22, 2007
By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
What started as a simple marketing video for Downtown law firm Cohen &
Grigsby has resulted in an Internet firestorm encompassing tens of
thousands of YouTube viewers, Lou Dobbs and the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
The video features portions of Cohen & Grigsby's "Seventh Annual
Immigration Law Update," held May 15 at the Pittsburgh Hilton, Downtown.
The segment of the video drawing all the attention is one in which lawyers
from Cohen & Grigsby's highly regarded immigration practice advocate
methods to comply with a law requiring employers prove that they have tried
to find qualified American workers before applying for a green card for a
foreign worker. The lawyers urge the audience, in so many words, to do
exactly the opposite.
"Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker,"
said partner Lawrence Lebowitz on the video. "And, you know, that in a
sense that sounds funny, but it's what we're trying to do here."
When Kim Berry, president of an organization called the Programmers Guild
that opposes the issuance of visas to foreign workers, watched the video
clip after he received it in an e-mail on Saturday, he thought it was
anything but funny.
Mr. Berry shortened the video from the version that he received, adding
subtitles and music for emphasis. "I grabbed the two masters and edited it
down, just to make it more convenient for the few hundred people I thought
might want to watch it," he said. "I didn't expect it to get 44,000 hits in
three days."
By the end of the weekend, political blogs of all stripes -- from DailyKos
to National Review's The Corner -- had linked to the video, which just so
happened to play nicely into issues raised in the immigration bill that the
U.S. Senate is debating this week.
Yesterday, Cohen & Grigsby put out a statement that while the firm stands
by the substance of the seminar, "we regret the choice of words that was
used during a small segment of the seminar. It is unfortunate that these
statements have been commandeered and misused, which runs contrary to our
intent."
The firm already removed its version of the video after a Monday article in
the online publication Information Week detailed the controversy.
But Mr. Berry's version remains on the Internet and by Tuesday, the story
was widespread enough to be featured on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," with Mr.
Dobbs saying that "the law firms and everyone else, they're just basically
try to [stick it to] the American worker."
Cohen & Grigsby, one of Pittsburgh's top 10 largest law firms, had found
itself embroiled in the 24-hour news cycle fueled by cable news and the
blogosphere. And it was about to get worse.
Yesterday, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to U.S.
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao asking her for assistance in "reviewing the
video and investigating the law firm's unethical procedures."
What made the video into such an Internet hit, said Mr. Berry, is that it
validated long-held suspicions that he and others had been unable to
substantiate.
"It's proof from the attorneys themselves that they are getting resumes
from qualified Americans and they are going through all sorts of steps so
that Americans don't get jobs," he said. "It shows what's really happening
behind the curtain."
But the issue is slightly more complicated than it is being portrayed on
the Internet, said Crystal Williams, deputy director for programs at the
American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C.
When companies apply for a green card for a worker, she said, it's often
for somebody that they already have brought over on a temporary visa and is
working at the company. But in order to fill the green card requirement
that there are no qualified American candidates, the company needs to redo
the job search -- even though they already have somebody working in that
position.
"It sounded a lot worse than it is," said Ms. Williams. "They were talking
about the electronic labor certification and that is a program that is very
formalized. By its very nature, it's a little bit twisted."
That twisted process leads to what Mr. Berry considers to be "fake"
newspaper advertisements for jobs that are essentially already filled with
green card candidates. For years, he's been tracking such ads in his
hometown newspaper, The Sacramento Bee.
In the Cohen & Grigsby video, attorneys advocated placing advertisements in
newspapers -- where they would be less likely to find qualified workers --
versus more fertile recruitment venues such as Monster.com or campus
recruitments. "Certainly we are not going to try to find a place where
applicants would be most numerous," said Mr. Lebowitz, who is also an
adjunct professor of immigration law at the University of Pittsburgh School
of Law.
If a company does find an undeniably qualified American candidate through
newspaper advertising, "if necessary schedule an interview, go through the
whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify them for this particular
position," said attorney Jennifer L. Barton on the video.
Those particular sections of the video "sounded bad," Ms. Williams said. "I
don't know that they are common practice."
Advertising positions in places where a company would not find job
applicants, she said, is "kind of the opposite" of the correct process.
But the real problem, said Ms. Williams, is the immigration process itself.
"Nobody's happy with it -- that's about the one consensus we can get, and
that includes the Department of Labor," she said. "That being said, no
one's been able to come up with a better one."
(Anya Sostek can be reached at asostek@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1308.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Newsletter Homepage:
http://www.JobDestruction.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm
Support this Newsletter and www.JobDestruction.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Be removed from this mailing list, reply to this
email with UNSUbSCRIBE in the subject window
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -