American Techno-Politics

Programmers file federal complaints over 'H-1B only' ads

In one of our most agressive moves to combat discrimination, the Programmers Guild has today filed over 300 complaints with the US Department of Justice for discriminatory ads. FYI I am on the board of directors of the non-profit Programmers Guild. Here is what ComputerWorld has to say about the complaints:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9001285
June 19, 2006 (Computerworld) -- The Programmers Guild is filing a stack of complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice against some 300 IT employers it says are discriminating against U.S. citizens and permanent residents by placing advertisements that specifically seek "H-1B only" visa holders or workers who have student or L-1 visas.

John Miano, founder of the Summit, N.J.-based Programmers Guild, said today that he has collected some 1,500 IT job advertisements in the past six weeks from a variety of online jobs boards that express preference for hiring visa holders. Miano said the practice is widespread because "for the most part, there isn't much enforcement going on. So we are trying to do what we can do to bring private enforcement against these employers."

Miano said H-1B workers are in demand because "they are cheap and they make good slave labor." The guild has filed about 100 complaints with the DOJ's Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Discrimination, and it plans to file another 200.

It's not to difficult to find IT job advertisements that seek specific skills, and H-1B opponents have long circulated examples of these advertisements on mailing lists.

For instance, in a search on the job board run by Dice Inc., iGate Mastech, a Pittsburgh-based IT staffing agency with about 1,000 employees, has an advertisement for eight Java developers with three to five years of Java development experience. The ad says: "Only looking for H-1B visas and should be willing to transfer."

posted by R. Lawson @ 8:38 PM