My last plea,

[Marc MERLIN]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 02:58:59PM -0800, joe bsd wrote:
> I have been to Sun Microystems and looked at box after box full
> of H1-B visa applications. So many, I couldn't count them all.  And
> that was just for 2001, a recession year.   Some of the LCA's were
> for my exact job and probably yours, too.  I looked at all those
> boxes of LCA's and thought about the thousands of workers that Sun
> laid off in 2001.  I thought about the thousands of qualified
> American workers looking for work.  It made me sick.

I  know this  is  a  rather old  thread,  but since  I  just  spent 3  weeks
interviewing for  sysadmin candidates in  my company, I'd say  the following
thing  (and I'll  disclose  that I'm  a former  H1-B  holder, now  permanent
resident)
 
H1-B workers who aren't top notch clearly should not be taken over Americans
right now. While  it sucks for  them, if they  lose their current  job, they
should go home.

Now, if they are top notch, then it's not the same.
While they are many  people who are looking for a job  in the sysadmin field
right now, I'm sorry to say that many of them plain suck. They actually also
sucked when jobs were plentiful, but companies were so desparate for bodies,
that they did get jobs.
Now, it's different, jobs ain't plentiful  anymore, and if you were not that
good to start with, you're probably toast
What has  made me sick were  the complete cluebies that  got important, high
paying jobs, and  got away with it. I'm quite happy  that things have become
more sane again.

I  do realize  however that  in the  process, some  very skilled  people are
without jobs,  especially in specialized  fields that just don't  require as
many people anymore, but  for the most part, the skilled  people I knew have
found other jobs with very few exceptions.

So yes, if  companies get away with firing US  employees, and replacing them
with H1-B  holders of similar  or lesser skill,  this ain't right  (with the
exception of  cases where  the people fired  were getting  paid ridiculously
high salaries), but  if companies are taking advantage of  the job market to
replace some  of their employees with  ones that have a  better skillset and
may have  more reasonable salary  demands too,  it's life, whether  the said
replacement employees are H1-B workers or not.

I'll  maintain  that  for the  most  part,  it's  still  hard to  find  good
people. You should see the losers I  had to interview, with 10 page resumes,
and senior in this or that, when they really knew Jack...
(only 4 out of the 15 people interviewed were actually worth talking to, and
that was for a junior and a senior position)

> I'm NOT trying to start a racist movement.  I have had responses from
> people who are themselves recent immigrants and former H1-B's and
> they agree with me 100%.  If it were really true(And it's not) that
> we can't find enough American workers for some of our best jobs, in a
> nation of 300,000,000, is the H1-B a real solution?  The real
> solution should be education 

That's what people keep  saying, but in the meantime, I'm  sorry to tell you
that the education system in this country is abysmal. Companies weren't only
picking H1-B  workers because  they were  cheaper (I can  assure you  that I
wasn't cheaper), but because many of them were more skilled.
H1-B  holders for  the most  part aren't  smarter than  Americans, but  they
studied a  hell of a lot  harder in school, and  had the chance of  going to
schools that were more challenging and set the bar a lot higher.
I've  seen many  smart Americans  being severely  held back  in school  here
because  of the  general lowered  expectations and  setting the  bar at  the
lowest common denominator.
If you want to  be educated here, you not only have to  be smart, but have a
lot of initiative to study on your own and/or get yourself in one of the few
good schools that this country does have, and hope that money doesn't get in
the way.
In the meantime, California still ranks  48th for the quality of its schools
in this country, doesn't it? (I might be off by a couple of spots).
Isn't this ironic?

> and training. 

Sometimes,  but people  who  ain't  that bright  and  don't  have that  much
initiative to  start with  can be  made a  bit more  useful, but  will never
become as  useful as the people  who are smarter, more  self sufficient, and
just pick things up or study by  themselves so that they don't need training
in the first place.

Many people  can become  decent helpdesk folks. Few  can become  good senior
sysadmins, such is life.
(obviously most people on this list, are in the senior sysadmin category)

Marc
-- 
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
  
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