Media clips
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“The union contract in D.C. was awful,” says Mark Simon, an Economic Policy Institute research associate and a former president of the Montgomery County (Maryland) teachers union. “It was an example of the kind of contract that existed in some school districts where the limitations placed on teachers’ time and the specificity of what administrators had to do [for] an evaluation [to] hold weight was so rigid that more often than not, teachers could not be evaluated out of the school system.” Simon added, “If a principal did not get the right documents filled out the right way on just the right line, then the whole thing was thrown out by an arbitrator.”
The American Prospect April 20, 2017 -
President Donald Trump signed his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order on Tuesday in an effort to prevent companies from choosing low-wage foreign workers over Americans. The order takes aim at the federal government’s H-1B visa program, which is supposed to help businesses hire highly-skilled, temporary workers from other countries. But critics of the program say it undercuts American workers and that most H-1B visas simply go to IT workers. But supporters say the program is vital to the tech industry, and argue that President Trump’s changes could hurt innovation. In this hour, we discuss President Trump’s order and how it could affect Silicon Valley.
Guests:
Sam Harnett, reporter, KQED
Anastasia Tonello, first vice president American Immigration Lawyers Association; managing partner, Laura Devine Attorneys
Ron Hira, associate professor of political science, Howard University; research associate, Economic Policy Institute; author, “Outsourcing America”
Gokul Gunasekaran, software engineerKQED April 20, 2017 -
The chart below, from Ron Hira of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, lists the top 10 H-1B employers:
All of these companies are, in Hira’s words, “leaders in using the offshore outsourcing business model to sell information technology (IT) services.” There’s quite a bit of evidence to suggest that at least some of these companies are using these visas in a way that doesn’t align with the program’s intent. If the recipients of H-1B visas were indeed highly skilled, we would expect them to be well-paid. But as this chart (also from the EPI) shows, Infosys and Tata Consultancy, consistently two of the biggest users of the program, pay H-1B visa workers less than we’d expect:Pacific Standard April 20, 2017 -
President Trump called on Tuesday for U.S. agencies to “buy American and hire American” and signed an executive order targeting H-1B guest worker visas, which help find foreign labor to fill technical jobs. Critics say the visa system is being abused. William Brangham talks to Economic Policy Institute’s Daniel Costa and Vivek Wadhwa of Carnegie Mellon University Engineering at Silicon Valley.
PBS News Hour April 19, 2017 -
En declaraciones a este diario, Daniel Costa, analista del Instituto de Política Económica (EPI, en inglés), dijo que el sistema de visas tiene grandes “defectos” y requiere reformas pero, a su juicio, los empleadores no tienen culpa porque, hasta ahora, la ley les ha permitido “reemplazar a trabajadores estadounidenses” por extranjeros con menos salario. Es el caso en empresas como Disney y Southern California Edison, “y también es legal pagar menos a través de las visas H-1B, en comparación con otros trabajadores estadounidenses debido a los reglamentos de salarios”, explicó el experto. “A través de las agencias federales se puede mejorar el programa, pero la verdadera solución tendrá que salir del Congreso”, agregó. Trumka coincidió con Costa en que, para lograr amplios cambios y una economía “más inclusiva y más justa” para los trabajadores, se requiere la intervención del Congreso. (Daniel’s tweet featured too)
La Opinion April 19, 2017 -
ELYUKH: Well, as we just heard Scott say earlier, the majority of H-1B workers across tech and other professions, I have to say – they are paid less than an American worker would get in the same job. And we often hear that there’s a shortage of skilled tech workers in the country, but then what does it mean when H-1B workers are paid less than American workers would get paid? Here’s how Daniel Costa put it. He’s an immigration expert at the Economic Policy Institute which focuses on low- and middle-income workers. DANIEL COSTA: What that tells me is that either employers are using the H-1B program to hire many, many skilled workers and then underpaying them when they’re here, or they’re using it to hire entry-level workers.
NPR April 19, 2017 -
“There’s some things that the Trump administration could do at the margins that might help clean up some of the worst abuses in the [H-1B] program,” Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, told NPR’s Scott Horsley. But “legislation is going to be required to really fix the program.”
NPR April 19, 2017 -
Annually, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services awards 65,000 visas through a lottery process, and exempts up to an additional 20,000 foreign nationals who hold master’s degrees or higher. In 2013, at least 460,000 workers entered the U.S. on an H-1B visa, according to the Economic Policy Institute, an independent think tank.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette April 19, 2017 -
Here’s another thing that’s out of balance: the rate of corporate profit growth in relation to wage and employment growth. The Economic Policy Institute’s 2015 study of wage stagnation shows that productivity grew 74% between 1973 and 2013 for hourly workers, while compensation grew just 9%.
Detroit Free Press April 19, 2017 -
The boost in babysitting wages means sitters are inching up on the typical worker. Americans’ median hourly wage stood at $17.86 in 2016, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Of course, most full-time workers also receive some benefits with their job, which isn’t common for babysitters.
CBS Moneywatch April 19, 2017