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How-Not-to-Hire-U.S.-Workers Law Firm Fires Back
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:32 PM
from the those-rascally-scamps dept.
from the those-rascally-scamps dept.
theodp writes "Congress is now calling for a Dept. of Labor investigation into a Pittsburgh law firm after a video showing its attorneys advising employers how to game the immigration system was posted on YouTube. Cohen & Grigsby, the firm in question, issued a statement insisting their statements were commandeered and misused, but would not allow CBS to view the original video in its entirety. Cohen & Grigsby has also been advising employers since 2002 that they have nothing to fear if they keep employees in the dark about the existence of DOL-required H-1B Public Access Files."
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their website (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:their website (Score:5, Informative)
Call them up and express your displeasure...
Main office:
Pittsburgh, PA
11 Stanwix Street
15th Floor
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-1319
TEL: 412.297.4900
FAX: 412.209.0672
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:their website (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Complaints work! but...
Why call the lawyers? I'm going through the paper and WRITING the employers. My current drafts are rather rough and abrasive, but I expect the tone and clarity to improve over the weeks. I'd imagine some HR managers who are fed up with the system might take the bait. The former HR manager at my company got fired for openly venting about these complaints and admitting part of the problem.
Re:their website (Score:5, Informative)
No, they are teaching companies what to do to make it look like they are complying with the laws when they have no intention of following the spirit of the law itself.
Parent
They ARE breaking the letter of the law. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Moot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Moot (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Moot (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, I love that thought. I want to hire one of you to be my maid.
"Mr. Smith, if you want to live in a country, you'd better learn how to write in our language. If I see ONE MORE "color", or "honor", or even a "gray" in my paperwork, I'm sending you back to your home country, where you can die in poverty. Do I make myself clear?"
Parent
Re:Moot (Score:5, Interesting)
You must be an importer. For everyone who wants to export goods, or compete against imported goods, or sell stuff (and services) to foreign tourists, sell stuff to domestic tourists who decided not to go to more expensive other countries, etc, a low dollar against other currencies are a GOOD thing.
All those dollars (note: dollars, not debt instruments - that's another discussion) held by people in other countries can only do ONE THING in the long run: Come back to the USA and buy something from here. A low dollar is just going to *finally* reverse the flood of US dollars out of the country to the mideast oil producers and Chinese factory owners. It's about time.
Parent
Chickens. Home. Roost. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chickens. Home. Roost. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Pectoral fin slapping! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I think their punishment should be (Score:4, Funny)
Shameful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shameful (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think your sentiment is correct. I only know two people working here in the US on H-1B visas: one is from India and he's here for the short term to make money and send it home. He intends on permanently moving back to India, getting married, and settling down to raise a family in the next few years.
The other has been working in the US for over 15 years, has been married to a US citizen for 6 and has a 5 yo son with dual citizenship, and has no intention of becoming a US citizen because it's just too much of a pain in the ass and not worth it to him.
They are both honest people earing a living here for different reasons and purposes, but neither of them are doing so with the intent of citizenship or anything that comes close to what this law firm is trying to promote. I think the folks that get scooped in via a firm like this are the ones getting really screwed. The firm is doing this for the benefit of their clients, big companies, and they couldn't give a fuck about the H-1B worker at all.
Hopefully the government will actually do something about this. I hope this firm and their practices will help magnify the hypocrasy and stupidity of the current immigration debate.
Parent
I wish they would get citizenship (Score:3, Interesting)
However, foreign workers who intend to go back and send the majority of the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What the H-1B worker gets you is someone that can't switch jobs. They need a sponsoring employer and have about two weeks to leave the country if they lose that sponsoring employer that brought them in. Switching sponsors isn't trivial. So you have a worker that can't quit and unless they want to return to the armpit of a place they came from, they will do what they are told and keep their mouth shut.
This h
Re:Shameful (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
I wish. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not going to happen in America (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Nothing new here, sadly (Score:5, Insightful)
The way the system is set up, how can it be any other way... if a company has decided they want to get someone a green card, then of course they do whatever they can to achieve that. If they instead wanted to replace the person with a US worker then they'd be doing an honest job search, and NOT pursing a green card. Duh! The law says you have to advertize the job, so you put an ad for the job in the most obscure paper possible, with the job requirements so custom tailored to the person you are trying to get a green card for that no one else can qualify. I'm sure it works better than ever in recent years now that most people expect to find job openings online rather than in the local paper.
What's lame here is Congress pretending to give a crap (presumably just because this particular story/video has hit the press) and wanting to investigate this particular law firm. One has to wonder are they being investigated for breaking the law, or rather just for making Congress look bad by openly flaunting the law? If Congress really gave a crap they'd fix the broken system rather than go after a law firm doing nothing different than every other law firm hired to assist in this process.
Re:Nothing new here, sadly (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. This has been going on since the inception of the H1-B program. In 1990, I watched a parade of US citizens interviewing where I worked for an engineering job opening later filled by an H1-B. The opening had also been posted to a bulletin board there with a salary that was about $10k less than a US citizen fresh out of engineering school would have made. Management was annoyed at having to jump through these hoops to obtain the cheap labor.
What is new here is the YouTube factor. The lawyer isn't really sorry his comments were commandeered. He's sorry he and the others got busted on YouTube. This film is an outrage, as is the H1-B program. It takes a film like this to cause a stink. Too bad we didn't have YouTube 17 years ago.
Parent
With apologies to Shakespeare (Score:5, Funny)
What Problem? I don't see one. (Score:3, Insightful)
Second issue: Do "illegals" really want to stay in this country? Here in Washington State, that's not the case. Many "illegals" make reasonably good money here for hard work, and send it home, where they will eventually retire, in a place where money is worth more than it is here. Not all "illegals" intend to stay, and very, very, very few take any jobs away from "Americans". When people talk about "immigration problems", most are not talking about High Tech jobs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But we have an economy that is now structured around paying people to stay poor and artifically low prices that distort everything, including wages paid to high tech workers.
Let's imagine a case where all the illegals either (a) walked home or (b) demanded the prevailing wage that a legal worker would get. McDonalds and Wendy's would have to charge more. Their people would get paid more. These people could then afford to pay more for rent and maybe apartment b
Please don't sanction this law firm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
compete with, goes out and hires these guys to help them hire as many "low-bid" workers as they can.
Meanwhile, I'll focus on hiring the best workers possible, regardless of where they are from, and eventually run
these other guys out of business anyway.
Boycott Dice.com and their censorship! (Score:5, Interesting)
However, dice.com has initiated a censorship campaign against certain posters and postings against H1-B visas. It's not clear if this is approved by management, or it's the random act of a few moderators. What is clear is that requests for this to stop, and for clarification of Dice's censorship policy have been deleted as well.
Add to this Dice's postings of standard pro-H1B visa propaganda, and it's very clear that Dice is in full support of the H1-B visa program.
This is odd for a job board which seeks the best talent in the U.S., but I guess it's the H1-B shops which are paying Dice's bills.
So until this censorship and propaganda campaign ends, I am taking by business elsewhere. I urge others who seek new jobs to do the same.
Darn, too many immigration stories lately... (Score:3, Funny)
Tip of the Iceberg (Score:3, Insightful)
And for those of you bitching about how us Americans don't have any more right to a job than anybody else, suck it. Every country has a responsibility to give first priority to the employment and prosperity of its own TAX PAYING citizens. America is no exception. Any company, from any country, found acting in bad faith with the government and its citizens, should be dealt with very harshly.
Distasteful is not the same as Illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
The job of the lawyer is to know the law inside out so that they can assist their client. The job of the legislator is to draft laws and regulations that have as few loopholes and weaknesses as possible.
If blame is to be assigned, it goes to the lawmakers.
Honestly though I suspect that most companies paying for this kind of advice are probably fooling themselves. Between the falling U.S. dollar, legal costs, and the inefficiencies associated with training and replacing short term or contract employees they likely aren't saving enough money to make it worthwhile.
Just because it looks cheap doesn't mean it really saves you money.
the way it works (Score:3, Interesting)
Only once the companies have already decided who they want to hire do silly US regulations, like posting to "Sunday newspapers". Geez, who gets hired based on responding to a Sunday newspaper ad anymore? Day laborers? So, yes, people who are saying that these ads are a sham are absolutely right, they're just wrong about why people are posting these ads.
Don't kid yourself: if you can't get a job as a software engineer now, you won't get one even if no foreign labor gets admitted to the US. The consequence of restricting H1b visas is simply that the jobs themselves move overseas.
get real (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen these requirements for formal job postings in non-immigration contexts as well, and they never work. If finding qualified, good applicants were as simple as posting a job ad and collecting resumes, headhunters and hiring bounties would be such a booming business.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good faith (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you actually watch the video in question? The lawyers gave explicit suggestions on how to rig the interview and advertising process to avoid getting responses from qualified US citizens. If that isn't bad faith, I don't know what is. This is not just an executive order, or a regulation propounded by a goverment agency, this is an honest-to-gosh law passed by congress. You may not like it, it may be inconvenient, it may even be foolish, but it is the law. You can challenge it court, you can lobby to have it changed, but to simply conspire to evade the law by fraud is corrosive of the rule of law.
An awful lot of Slashdot readers believe that US intellectual property law is out of step with the real world. Are they justified in simply ignoring it?
Parent
Security Clearance (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the world wonders why America has suddenly taken to blowing up small nations... when many of the only moderately secure jobs in the US are in the defense sector.
Sigh.
RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)
So, why don't companies want responses to these ads? Because they already know that they aren't going to get any good responses to a newspaper ad. How do they know that? Because they are already running lots of ads all over the place. Any response they are going to get is just going to hold up the green card application unnecessarily.
These companies are trying to do the right thing--getting their foreign employees green cards. They don't deserve to be dragged through the mud for it.
U. Pitt Pays Firm to Pen H-1B Letters of Support (Score:3, Informative)
The solution is simple really (Score:3, Insightful)
of my life in the US military. There are 10's of thousands of other troops on the front lines
in Iraq fighting insurgents. These brave men are putting their lives on the line every day so that we here in the states can maintain what freedoms we still have and assisting in securing our national interests.
If you want to immigrate to the US then fine you spend 4 years active duty in my country's military and earn your green card. Everyone able bodied and of qualified military age should have to serve
4 years in our military to earn a green card. After those 4 years if someone want's to deny you
a green card, I will be the first to help you kick their ass.
Our troops ain't over there right now risking their lives just so they can come home and be
denied jobs because of crap like this!
Now tell me I am wrong!
Re:DELETE THE BORDER (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
to each other, yes (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, right now the UK is having a major problem with people sneaking in.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:USians feel they're entined to everything (Score:4, Insightful)
If my cornfield has plentiful heads of corn because I practiced wise field practices, watered and weeded regularly, should I have more rights to the corn than random people driving down the highway who decide they want some of my corn now that it is ripe?
If my city engages in good policy so that we have a good economy should I not have more rights to employment in my city than strangers who had no part in building but merely snuck in at night after we had done the hard work?
If my country engages in an economic and political system which over the course of 40 years causes my country to have surplus and the country next door (say a religious quasi dictator plutocracy with rampant corruption) reduces itself to ruin over 40 years, should non-citizens be able to come in, break the law (w/regard to housing, driving, paying taxes, forged documents, etc. etc.), and have more right to a job than citizens?
---
However as far as capitalism goes- with real capitalism, we would be able to buy our drugs for
Parent
Re:USians feel they're entined to everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, capitalism is fine. However, while the average corporation can seek out labor all over the planet and simply put up an office or hire workers from the cheapest areas, the American citizen does not have such a pool to choose from - neither in terms of employment or cost of living.
A corporation can pick from the entire planet and decide to invest in an area where they can pay experienced professionals as much in salary as the average American citizen pays in rent. While the corporation and the American citizen may be based in America, the corporation is not constrained by the dynamics, labor supply and financial situation of this country. The worker, however, is. We don't have a choice. Milk is about $3.85 per gallon. Period. I can't go somewhere and buy it for a nickel a gallon. And if you want to live close enough to these corporations to work for them, you're usually looking at more expensive living. You will pay $800 or $1,000 or $2,000 for a one bedroom apartment or half a million bucks for a small house. Period. Unless you plan on commuting 1500 miles from some hill in the midwest out to the west coast every morning.
Then, to add insult to injury, this shoddy form of sham-capitalism isn't enough for them. They want to compound it by telling us that Americans are not plentiful enough or educated enough. Now, if there is a shortage of milk or gas, I have to pay more money for it. If there is a shortage of experienced labor in this country, corporations simply artificially adjust the value of these workers by lobbying government to let them bring in more employees from overseas or to simply move a chunk of their own operations overseas.
People try to suggest that Americans are racist or xenophobic when all they are doing is showing concern for their well-being and their careers. They have a right to do so. Especially when - on top of the imbalanced system - we have underhanded corporations and services as in this article working to drill us even further into the ground.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
> too stupid to notice this, but the most skilled labour with the least
> costs most certainly isn't coming from USians.
>
> If for no other reason than the MASSIVE health care costs the, uh,
> "oversized" average USian places on the system.
"[...] what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things
I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were
you even close to anything that could be
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you are a US company, US law requires you to make a good faith effort to find a US citizen qualified for the job. So yes, I would suggest that you had better be prepared to do just that. You may not like the law, it may even be a foolish law, but then a lot of Slashdot readers don't like the current state of IP law either. Are you prepared to give them a pass on that?