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An Open Letter to the H1B.info Website by Punkerslut
Info: H1B.info Greetings, Your website on the H1B visas is interesting. It is an anti-immigration viewpoint, aimed at those in the middle class. Since immigration has been vilified as the cause of depressed wages among the working-class, why can't it be the same for those with university degrees? Of course, the threat isn't so ominous. The staggering "over 1 million visas" is a mere drop in the bucket of 150 million American workers. However, this is with the backdrop of "another recession is likely because of the mortgage crisis, and the job market may already be deteriorating." How many jobs are effected by the recession? Well, you point to the economy failing to produce the necessary 160,000 jobs every month required for new workers. Doesn't it seem like the economic organization is the problem, as opposed to one particular sub-division of the working class or another? The increase of laborers "made a bad recession even worse." Yes, the more workers there are, the lower the wages, since the people, not quite free, are at least cheap. But this isn't caused by the presence of "more workers." This is caused by the presence of more workers in an economy based on a few individuals exploiting the vast majority. If you want to reduce the number of workers laboring within the Capitalist system, try doing something more productive: distribute birth control, fight religious groups that oppose birth control, encourage small families, encourage safe-sex practices, etc., etc.. Besides, in today's global market, fewer skilled professionals are needed in the United States than ever. There is no need to import "programmers," which you listed as a threatened occupation. Any individual, in any part of the world, with a computer, can doing programming just as well where they were born, than in an American office building. The same exact thing goes for the other "threatened professions" that you listed: scientists and engineers. There are companies in many underdeveloped nations that dominate the global market that only sell blueprints, or plans, or consulting, acting as a go-between in their local labor and a developed nation's local business. Fear of immigration isn't a threat anymore, because of one of those groups you claimed to be threatened by immigrants: programmers, scientists, and engineers. Without the Internet and global communications systems, there would be absolutely no way for foreign labor to exchange the product of intellectual labors to fit the demands of a specific business in a foreign nation. Yet, you want us to call up "your Senator" and "Tell him that the H-1B has hurt your professional career with stagnant wages, job-loss and under-employment." You know what's led to stagnant wages, job-less and under-employment in the United States? Those three classes that you claim are threatened by these things: engineers, scientists, programmers. Unemployment and absence of a thriving economy aren't caused by a handful of immigrants that make up less than 1% of the working population. It is caused by global, capital-financial infrastructures, whose ability to communicate and expand has been powered by the labors of university-trained workers. "Call up your senator! Call up your representative! Show up to the party-meetings, local town hall meetings, etc., etc., etc..!" What a war-cry, quite long indeed. Oh, hey, I've got a better idea: why doesn't every scientist, programmer, and engineer refuse to work until wages are increased and jobs are provided? I think others have called this "a strike." After all, if we weren't so efficient, we would have work for everyone. One person's agricultural labor can produce enough to feed a thousand people, in the year 1900. Today, it's probably at least one to 10,000 people. Now, why can't everyone work for 30 minutes a day to feed themselves and their family? You must know what these engineers and scientists know: that there is no obstacle to full employment, for everyone on the globe, with a short work day and decent wages, as far as our industrial-agricultural resources and technology are concerned. What could be the problem then for recessions and unemployment and poverty and hunger-forced migration? Could it possibly be the Capitalist system that allows a very few people to control the living conditions and standards of the common people? Say, isn't that the same small group of people who use their media outlets to encourage wars so they can get munitions and land development contracts? Isn't that the same isolated few who produce nothing and consume everything? Isn't it that same group which has always fostered the idea of "nationalism" and "the [insert-nation-name] way of life"? Isn't it that same few... who have always excluded the masses from the harvest they produce, and then told them that a few immigrants were the causes of all their problems? Don't you think it's far wiser, far more scientific, far more logical, and far more technically-accurate, to attack the Capitalist system instead? After all, what other conclusion could you expect from well-trained scientist, engineer, or programmer? Thank you, I patiently await a response. Sincerely,
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