ImmigrationAFL-CIO vows to fight Hatch’s amendments to immigration bill

Rixhard Trumka has vowed to stop Sen. Orrin Hatch's immigration bill amendments // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

A deal  agreed to between Senators Charles Schumer (D-New York), Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) following days of negotiations, saw Hatch throw his support for the immigration reform bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee and, in exchange, Schumer and Durbin, when the bill comes to the floor, would try to persuade skeptical Democrats that Hatch’s changes to the bill, which brought it closer to the preferences of the high-tech industry, are not necessary bad for U.S. labor..

“We think what Sens. Hatch and Schumer have agreed on strikes a fair balance, and when it does, it’s good for the economy. That means the economy wins,” Robert Hoffman, senior vice president for the Information Technology Industry Council, told the Hill. “This agreement, in our view, helps bring jobs and opportunities to the U.S.”

The Hill reports that Hatch’s amendments will ease requirements on  employers in  hiring highly skilled foreign workers, and remove the requirement on most American companies on hiring and firing American workers when considering hiring  foreign employees. Hatch argued that requiring U.S. technology companies to certify that they have looked for qualified American employees before deciding to hire foreign employees, and explain their decisions to fire American employees who were fired within ninety days before or ninety days following the hiring of a foreign employee, would make it harder than it already is for technology companies to fill positions. Such difficulties have forced some companies to relocate their operations overseas.

The agreement in the Judiciary Committee has upset the U.S. largest labor federation, a key supporter of the original immigration draft.

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka on Tuesday called Hatch’s amendments  “unambiguous attacks on American workers,” adding that the federation would fight the amendments.

“Hatch’s amendments change the bill so that high tech companies could functionally bring in H-1B visa holders without first making the jobs available to American workers,” Trumka told theHill. “Hatch’s amendments would mean that American corporations could fire American workers in order to bring in H-1B visa holders at lower wages.”

Trumka also did not hold back on the technology industry as a whole.

“The next [Sergey] Brin might be sitting in an American classroom right now,” Trumka said , referencing the Google co-founder. “But if that future innovator cannot get an entry-level job in high tech because employers prefer importing temporary workers, entrepreneurial innovations will not occur in the United States.”

“Tech tycoons like Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg have gotten rich while wages in the technology sector have stagnated.”

A group of major technology companies, including Google, Facebook, Intel, and IBM issued a letter on Tuesday addressing the claims by the AFL-CIO.

“Just as important, the bill preserves all of the U.S. worker protections listed above: American workers will be recruited, American workers will not be displaced, and American workers will not have their salaries undercut,” the group wrote.

“With these critical improvements, U.S. employers will be better able to keep and create jobs in this country.”

Technology groups also argued that U.S. universities are not producing enough graduates with the advanced computer skills needed to fill technical jobs. The AFL-CIO rejects this argument.

“We’re sorry that tech companies find it onerous to conduct actual job searches in the United States, but we believe genuinely innovative companies can pursue American workers successfully without finding the requirement unduly burdensome,” AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser told theHill.