Saturday, April 4, 2020

Why do H-2B seasonal work visas excite so much more "outrage" than H-1B visas? Need we really ask why?


Forbes once again is singing the tune of money-grubbing corporations in regard to the allocation of H-1B visas, this time claiming that 100—count-them-100—may have been mistakenly denied approval by the USCIS, likely due to name similarities. Yet in a story from the Bay-area Mercury News, we learn the fact that while 10 million workers were laid off in the past two weeks, and many millions more to come, companies applied for 275,000 H-1B visas in a new “streamlined” system that makes it much easier to process these applications. 68 percent of the applicants are from India, 13 percent from China. Although the claim is that a great many of them have “advanced degrees,” the reality is closer to what I have observed in the office building I work in: one floor is for the customer service phone operators for a major national corporation’s health insurance program; the manager is Indian, and about 80 percent of the phone operators are also Indian. I once encountered him while I was working; he asked me if I had access to the floor outside of business hours, which I took to mean he was “concerned” about me stealing things off people’s desks, because, you know, that’s what people who look “Mexican” do. 

According to a Quora question answered by someone who is Indian, it seems perfectly “reasonable” for Indian managers working in American companies to forgo seeking native-born workers and hire through the H-1B program with the blessings of the corporate office. Not necessarily because they are “smarter” or even “cheaper,” but because they prefer to work with other Indians, because of “temperament,” shared cultural and cuisine considerations, and the fact they just prefer each other’s company. There are native-born citizens who are more than eager to fill such jobs, but as someone at the Indian-owned Infosys was quoted as saying back in 2013, why should they hire “stupid Americans”? In response to a forum question about Amazon’s usually unhelpful “customer service,” Indians on the chat lines say they dislike fielding calls from American customers because of their tendency to get angry when they are provided no more information than what they could read themselves on the order page. The truth of the matter is that American customers are much more willing to believe the stories they are told by American-based customer service representatives, but unfortunately they “cost” too much. 

And as talked about before, it is not  that there isn’t enough American workers for even “high-tech” jobs, but rather  many companies choose to discard older (and higher-paid) workers with “out-of-date” skills in favor of cheaper workers with supposedly “up-to-date” skills. This wouldn’t have happened in the “old days”; such workers would have been retrained, just as military personnel are retrained on the latest weapon systems or procedures. Can you imagine the U.S. Army just “firing” half its force or denying reenlistment to experienced soldiers due to “out-of-date skills”? That’s crazy.

Politico, meanwhile, tells us that the Trump administration is under fire not for restricting access to H-2B visas, but for “easing requirements for immigrants to get jobs as farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers, aware that industries, including those that fill grocery store shelves, could be hurt if they couldn’t hire foreign employees.” The administration had sought an increase of 35,000 in seasonal workers to help a “cratering” economy, but “activists” who are irate at the prospect have apparently put a “hold” on the increase. Who are these “activists”? Mainly organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as anti-Hispanic immigrant hate groups, like FAIR, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies. 

Like, it’s impossible to understand why people who Stephen Miller and Ken Cuccinelli just don’t like seeing around just want to live? The Guardian reports on the recent ambush of police outside the village of El Aguaje in Mexico, in which at least 13 were killed and nine wounded by a local drug cartel. It was implied that these “low-level” officers, poorly paid and forced to buy their own bullets, were the “price” a corrupt police chief had to pay for offending the cartel. The current president of Mexico (popularly referred to by his acronym, Amlo), has instituted a “hugs not bullets” policy which has clearly not stemmed the flow of cartel-related murders, which may be getting worse because of competition due to price collapses of marijuana and natural opium-based “product” due to either legalization or the growing popularity of synthetic drugs in the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S.’ thirst for illegal drugs still continues to fuel the drug trade, the flow of automatic weapons from the U.S. into the hands of cartels leading to more bloodshed, and the fact that Mexico’s militarized national guard is more busy doing Trump’s extortionist bidding—preventing migrants from Central America from traveling to the U.S., rather than enforcing order in cartel-controlled territory—and people here wonder why anyone would want to escape that. Trump is now using the coronavirus situation to seal off the southern border, and yet it continues to allow H-1B visa holders to enter from a country whose underreporting of the virus certainly dwarfs that of China.

Why H-2B visas for temporary seasonal work (normally capped at 66,000—less than the current 85,000 additional to the H-1B visa holders already here) excites so much more “outrage” is clear enough, and but the justification for that outrage is even more ignorant. Yes, many people are out-of-work, but that doesn’t mean that they are all willing to take the long drive out on the other side of the mountains to work in the fields and orchards in the mostly arid and treeless climes of Yakima Valley, living in accommodations that most would find beneath their “dignity.” I remember reading a story a while back in the Seattle Weekly, about how immigration authorities were making it more difficult to bring in the seasonal workers from Mexico that the horse race track in Auburn had been employing for years, and all the trouble the track was having finding “natives” to do jobs like taking care of the horses even with the offer of higher wages. Prospects would come, then say they didn’t want to do things like cleaning stalls, or someone would work a few days and never be seen again. 

There is a reason why immigrant labor is required to fill certain jobs, and that hasn’t changed even since the Bracero program ended in the 1960s. “Americans” don’t want to do certain jobs regardless of what they pay, and as the Politico story notes, most unemployed Americans would prefer to get a free check than do seasonal work in the fields or do messy food processing work. In fact most Americans think of such jobs as “Mexican” work, and usually in a derogatory fashion. Further, most people would even refuse to do what I always do rather than wait for a government handout until a job “magically” appears—sign-up at a temp agency for work; not much in the way of benefits, but some people just can’t imagine sitting around not working for their money. People who come to this country looking for work also have that mindset, and being attacked for it can only be regarded as hypocritical at best.

As mentioned, racism is a significant part of all of this. The other day a white woman got on the bus hauling her “luggage”—apparently homeless, or more accurately, a vagrant—and started chattering non-stop, complaining about anything and everything. Her principle target of complaint, however, was of course anything that had to do with those “Mexicans,” including the Taco Bell the bus passed by. This person was probably on the cusp of dementia, if not already there, and she probably could have benefited from medication—the more powerful the better. Yet on the other hand, it is always useful to know that many people think this way, only not expressing themselves out loud, save in response to social media posts that call into question the general state of ignorance and bigotry. 

But to be honest, ignorance and bigotry is an equal opportunity employer: a black woman got on the bus, and she proceeded to cover her seat with plastic, and wiping down the back of the seat in front her, which I found to be just a tad excessive concern about her fellow riders. However, she wasn’t wearing a face protector or gloves, and I observed that she had a bad case of the "sniffles."  I wondered aloud if she was trying to protect “us,” and she responded in a violence-laden harangue, as well as vehemently denying that she was “sick.” After the driver asked her to tone it down, she pulled out the current edition of the Seattle Times and eagerly digested the latest front page story on the coronavirus situation. All the while she kept sniffling, sneezed once without covering, and then coughed—and was late in covering her mouth in the incorrect manner, almost forgetting that I was still there to recall her violent denial that she was “sick.” She turned her head towards me, perhaps “daring” me to offer comment, but I obviously didn’t need to. 

I’ll be on an involuntary “vacation” next week, so I’m taking a week off from this as well; it seems that we keep repeating the same things over and over again—and need to, because nothing ever changes no matter how bad things get, does it?

No comments:

Post a Comment