Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 20, 2012

Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas

Click here to access article and 10:15m CBS video posted by Robert Oak from The Economic Populist.

While the Wall Street Journal tries to claim software engineer is the best job, whistle blower Jay Palmer is blowing the lid off the dire straights most American technical workers are facing today. We have brazen labor arbitrage through abuse of the United States foreign guest worker system. American workers with college degrees, high skills and years of experience, are either fired or not hired. Systemically U.S. STEM labor is displaced and replaced by cheap foreign guest workers, some on immigration visas which are not even legal.

With all the apparent concern about illegal immigrants and all the resources put into preventing them from coming into the US, it's obvious that government authorities are looking the other way at these cost savers and profit enhancers for US corporations.

Although CBS failed to inquire about government collusion with this scam, I have to credit them with this rare exposé of this practice which suggests the hypocrisy of US politicians about their concern for US workers.