<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 1942 -- 12/08/2008 >>>>>

Have you noticed that when a politician wants to pass the buck on a problem
often the response is to order a new government study?

This time around U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) wants to be perceived as
doing something about the fiasco at Pfizer by calling for a government
investigation of the H-1B visa program. Apparently the Americans at Pfizer
who are being forced to train their H-1B replacements are raising enough of
a fuss to get the Congress critters nervous.

While it's wonderful that Courtney wants to do another GAO study of H-1B,
he could use the ones that have already been completed, and then he could
actually propose legislation that actually does something to alleviate the
problems. Come to think of it, if Courtney really wanted to do something
about H-1B he could sponsor a House version of the bill in the Senate by
Durbin/Grassley (S. 1035).

The sad reality for the Pfizer people is that studies and new legislation
will come far too late to save what's left of the jobs there. It's far too
late for political posturing.

There are several good GAO studies on H-1B -- the problem is that everyone
in Congress ignores them. Norm Matloff described what happened in 2000 when
Congress rammed the H-1B cap increase down our throats (AC 21 which raised
the cap to 195,000 per year):

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Mich.pdf

   About a month before the vote on AC 21, the GAO released a
   report which was highly critical of the H-1B program. Yet
   the entire 19,000-word discussion of the bill in the Senate
   consisted of praise for the bill;
   the GAO report was not mentioned even once.

So why, may I ask, does Courtney want the GAO to do another report that
will be universally ignored by Congress?

Here are some examples of GAO reports, and there have been many others by
government agencies that came to similar conclusions.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-881
High-Skill Training: Grants from H-1B Visa Fees Meet Specific Workforce
Needs, but at Varying Skill Levels
GAO-02-881 September 20, 2002


http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/pre_1998/06-96-002-03-321.pdf
The Department of Labor's Foreign Labor Certification Programs: The System
is Broken and Needs to be Fixed, Audit Report, U.S. Department of Labor
Office of Inspector General, May 22, 1996

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03883.pdf
Better Tracking Needed to Help Determine H-1B Program’s Effects on U.S.
Workforce, 1998


UPDATE: So far Courtney's website doesn't say anything about a GAO
investigation, so he may have been blowing hot air last week. I also
checked the Congressional Record and couldn't find any menton of Courtney
asking for an investigation.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=a3f1d1bf-2e31-4944-ace8-49e84e5cd084

Courtney seeks probe of visa program tied to outsourcing 


Published on 12/6/2008 in 
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney said Friday he will be calling for a government
investigation of a guestworker visa program that critics say has allowed
multinational corporations such as Pfizer Inc. to outsource thousands of
American jobs to foreign nations over the past two decades.
Courtney, D-2nd District, said his call for a probe by the Government
Accountability Office - Congress's investigatory arm - is tied to his
concern that the H-1B visa program is being misused by corporations at the
expense of American workers. His decision to ask for a GAO investigation
comes after a series of reports in The Day outlining allegations that
Pfizer is using large numbers of foreign workers at their R&D campuses in
Groton and New London in a systematic effort to replace their local
information-technology contracting force.

"We're in a tough economy right now, and companies are struggling,"
Courtney said in a phone interview. "It's hard to know what is the right
way to respond."

Courtney said he contemplated calling for a U.S. Department of Labor
investigation of Pfizer's use of H-1B visas, but ultimately was persuaded
not to go that route.

He said former Connecticut congressman Bruce Morrison, an opponent of
H-1Bs, told him that the use of the guestworker program is a gray area and
it is not clear that Pfizer's use of the visas would constitute a clear
violation of law. In addition, Courtney said the Labor Department under the
current Bush administration "has been pathetic in terms of upholding the
law" as it pertains to protecting employees, so he had little faith it
would act.

Sources have told The Day that H-1B visas have been used locally over the
past three years to transform a largely American IT force at Pfizer's
Groton and New London campuses into a place more and more composed of
foreign workers. The H-1B workers, the sources said, are often supplied by
Indian companies such as Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services
rather than Pfizer itself, which said Friday that it has only 60 H-1B
workers companywide.

In the past few months, according to sources, Pfizer has been ratcheting up
the number of foreign workers locally. According to several sources, the
effort is part of a plan to outsource much of the company's local
information technology work from American contractors to outside
contracting firms that hire employees largely from India.

"They're taking jobs from people who live and work here," said one source,
who asked not to be identified for fear of being fired. "It's all about the
money. The Pfizer family is going out the window."

"This is a David and Goliath situation," said another source, indicating
that laid-off contractors felt powerless to fight the turnover at Pfizer.

Two sources said this week that Pfizer's outsourcing frenzy had been
expected to be completed by the end of this month, dovetailing with a
contingent-worker policy called Procedure 117 that required, as of the
beginning of this year, no contractor to work longer than one year or the
length of a contract. But the sources said Pfizer is now asking American
contractors to stay an extra three months to continue training the workers
who, allegedly, will eventually replace them.

Pfizer's outsourcing process is expected to save the company millions of
dollars and cost local contractors hundreds of jobs, the sources said.

Pfizer has been unwilling to discuss specifics or even acknowledge that
there has been an increase of foreign workers on the Groton and New London
campuses.

But according to a transcript of an October conference call in which Pfizer
officials discussed their third-quarter earnings report, both company chief
executive Jeffrey B. Kindler and Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio
trumpeted the company's cost-savings plans, which cut $460 million during
the most recent financial reporting period.

D'Amelio promised even more cuts in the fourth quarter - at least $300
million - to fulfill or perhaps surpass Pfizer's two-year "Adapting to
Scale" goal of saving up to $2 billion.

"We have a wide array of outsourcing opportunities in various stages of
implementation," D'Amelio said.

"Manufacturing, logistics, finance, facilities and IT are among the
functions contributing to the financial and operational benefits of the
strategy."

Still, Pfizer has been less than forthcoming about what is happening to its
IT force in Groton and New London. A list of questions sent to Pfizer this
week elicited few additional details, other than both foreign and U.S.
firms would be used in the company's outsourcing efforts.

"Workforce reduction continues to be a reality in our business," said
Pfizer spokeswoman Joan Campion.

Previously, Toni Hoover, a senior vice president at Pfizer, admitted that
the company has been "pursuing further outsourcing opportunities in IT,"
but didn't address whether the pharmaceutical giant was involved in a
systematic effort to drop much of its U.S. contracting force in favor of
foreign workers.

Courtney said he has been in discussions with Pfizer over the past few days
about the allegations about the New York-based pharmaceutical giant's
outsourcing practices, but has gleaned few additional details.

Courtney and U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., in response to The Day's story
last month about Pfizer's IT outsourcing, wrote a letter to Pfizer asking
the company to reconsider laying off its longtime contractor work force.

Courtney and Dodd also asked Pfizer to quantify the number of local workers
who would be replaced by foreign contractors on H1-B visas.

By asking for a GAO investigation, Courtney said he hoped to get an
unbiased view of H-1B problems so that fixes can be made in the next
immigration bill, which Congress hopes to pass next year.

"I think it will be helpful," Courtney said. "We will be starting with a
clean slate and a new administration. I think it will be good to take a
look at it in a nonpartisan fashion."

L.HOWARD@THEDAY.COM


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