Exporting Jobs

As a dual citizen, I am a lot upset with how this country cavalierly ships out its jobs to the lowest bidder. I find that I am competing against real foreigners (v. me who is technically citizen due to birth in the motor city). It is very easy for companies to get H1 visas, or just ship off the jobs. And it is my attitude toward this type of behaviour which puts me at odds with both political parties: especially the republicans.

H1 visas are what a company gets if there is no local talent who can do the job. This is why there are loads of Indians in the IT industry. On the other hand, I am sure there are loads of people out there who could be trained to do the job, if the companies were forced to do so. Or, in my case, the companies had to prove there was no local talent.

In 1992, I was living in Brussels and working for a law firm there. My grandfather had a stroke in Autumn 1991. In a way, I felt I needed to be with my mum in the States. Along came a job ad in the ABA Journal for someone with a British Education, trained in European Community law, with experience in that field who could be admitted to the Illinois bar. Five people who knew me contacted me to tell me about this ad. I was to submit my resume to the Illinois Department of Labour.

Anyway, I ended up returning to the States in the hope that I would hear from these people for a job interview (among other reasons). That never happened. Well, not exactly. About a year later, I received an offer from a large law firm to come to Chicago to interview. Prior to that interview, I rode into town with an immigration attorney who told me about Job Cert ads. They are the ads which are supposed to prove there is no local talent for a job. That was probably what the ABA Journal ad was. So, during the interview, I mentioned this ad and the interviewer chuckled and said, "Oh, that was you. we pulled the ad and rewrote it to get our candidate."

Now, in any other country, the firm would have had to at least interview me before hiring a "foreigner". Not so in the US. The firm is allowed to pull the ad and rewrite it to make it more specific so that it can hire its own candidate.

I am one case where this has happened. How many others are there out there? How many US citizens are being denied jobs for illegal aliens (the minimum wage and construction jobs) or visas are being granted just because they can pay a foreigner less money?

Another thing which really has me pissed off are the foreign call centres. IS business really saving money if somebody in Mumbai or Bangalore is taking the phone call, yet they don't really understand the problem? Case in point, I had two phone lines that I cut down to one in September. My DSL should have been moved to the one existing line. Somehow, my phone bill didn't go down. I kept calling with no responsible human being. First line was the voice mail hell, which never got me to a human being. The Second line was the off-shore phone bank.

I am talking to Mohinder, Gupti, Shakti, et al. who don't grasp the concept that someone who has been a customer for 5 years isn't a "new" customer. Why the new customer fee? Requests for a supervisor are met with a long wait on hold. So, I am getting more and more frustrated. I file complaints with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. Even then, I don't really get any satisfaction from my phone company. It isn't until my internet is cut off that I realise the extent of my phone company's screw up. Of course, it takes three hours to straighten this out, which probably wouldn't have happened if i hadn't complained to the PUC.

The easy solution, which should have happened was that there was a move order for my DSL from the line that was discontinued to the main phone line. No, what had happened was that they set up a new DSL account and kept the old account alive on a non-existant phone line! I am not sure what language they speak in Mumbai or Bangalore since there are 22 different official languages in India (I think Hindi), but they couldn't grasp English. None of these people could see the problem. In fact, the situation became more and more messed up until I had to speak with people in the US.

How much money is business wasting by having people who don't really speak English field customer service phone calls? Even more salient, how pissed off are the customers to have their time wasted? I mean I would switch my business in a heartbeat if there was an alternative. But there isn't.

The Republicans love to talk about market forces, but that is nice talk. Especially if people are losing their jobs. Additionally, is business really doing any better by going for the cheapest labour it can find if it ends up costing more in the long run in repairs to its eff ups? Wouldn't we be better off if there were more Americans working than looking afield for workers, especially in a recession?

Quite frankly, other countries aren't going to hire an American if they have unemployed people with qualifications. Conversely America shouldn't be hiring people from abroad if there are Americans without jobs.