SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: H1-B visas harm one type of worker and exploit another. This mess has to be fixed
NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
We live in a moment with unprecedented income and wealth inequality. At a time when the wealthiest people in our country have never had it so good, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and the inflation-adjusted income of the average American worker has been stagnant for 50 years. Why?
How come the three richest men in America own more wealth than the bottom half of our society, while so many of our people struggle to afford high rental pricegroceries and other basic foodstuffs?
It’s time to take a hard look at some of the economic policies that have made the rich even richer, while many Americans continue to fall further behind.
BERNIE SANDERS JOINS H-1B VISA PROGRAM TO REPLACE AMERICAN JOBS FOR “SERVANTS”
Thirty years ago, the leaders of corporate America, the political establishment in both major parties, and the editorial boards of influential newspapers told us not to worry about the loss of blue-collar manufacturing jobs that would result from unfettered free trade agreements such as NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China (PNTR). They promised that those lost jobs would be more than offset by the many well-paying information technology jobs that would be created in the United States. I never believed in that and I voted against those agreements.
Unfortunately, I and many others who opposed those trade deals were proven right. NAFTA and PNTR cost us millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs as large corporations closed thousands of factories in America and fled to China, Mexico and other low-wage countries in search of cheap labor.
And what about all the great high-tech jobs that would be created? Well, that didn’t really happen either. As a result of the H-1B guest worker program, large corporations are now importing hundreds of thousands of low-wage guest workers from abroad to fill white collar technology jobs which are available. In other words, “Billionaires’ heads win. American workers’ tails lose.”
In recent weeks, the H-1B program has sparked intense debate. Billionaires like Elon Musk they argue is critical to our economy, arguing that the United States faces a shortage of highly skilled engineers and technology professionals. They are dead wrong.
The primary purpose of the H-1B and other guest worker programs is not to hire the “best and brightest,” but instead to replace American workers with lower-paid foreign workers who often live as white-collar workers. The cheaper it is to hire guest workers, the more money the multi-billionaire owners of large corporations make.
BERNIE SANDERS’ DREAM: TWO AMERICAS, THE PEOPLE VS. BILLIONAIRES
Not only is this program disastrous for American workers, it can also be very harmful to migrant workers, who are often locked into lower-paying jobs and can have their visas revoked by their corporate bosses if they complain about dangerous, unfair, or illegal working conditions. .
Between 2022 and 2023, the top companies using the H-1B program laid off 85,000 American workers, while simultaneously bringing in over 34,000 guest workers from abroad. Meanwhile, millions of Americans with advanced degrees in STEM fields are unable to find work in their areas of expertise.
If there really is a severe shortage of skilled tech workers in this country, why did Tesla lay off more than 7,500 American workers last year — including many software developers and engineers at its factory in Austin, Texas – while applying to hire thousands of H-1B guest workers?
If these jobs are only for the “best and brightest”, why did Tesla hire H-1B guest workers as associate accountants for only $58,000, associate mechanical engineers for only $70,000 a year, and associate material planners for only $80,000 a year? These don’t sound like highly specialized jobs for the top 0.1 percent, as Musk claimed last month. Musk failed to address concerns about Tesla’s use of H-1B visas for its employees.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONS
If this program is really supposed to be about importing workers with advanced degrees in science and technology, why are H-1B guest workers employed as lawyers, dog trainers, massage therapists, cookbooksand English teachers? Can we really not find English teachers in America? Do we really believe that we are facing a great shortage of lawyers in our country?
Let’s be clear. Given that there may be a labor shortage in our country in some highly specialized fields that need to be filled with employees from abroad through the H-1B program, we must make sure that this program is used as a short-term solution.
In the long run, if the United States is to succeed in highly competitive global economywe must have the best educated workforce in the world.
And one way to accomplish this is by significantly increasing guest worker fees that large corporations pay to fund scholarships, internships and training opportunities for American workers. This is something I have advocated since my first days as a US Senator.
Furthermore, we must also significantly raise the minimum wage for guest workers, give them the freedom to change jobs easily, and require corporations to first aggressively recruit American workers before they can hire foreign workers. The rampant corporate abuse of the H-1B program must end.
Multibillionaire oligarchs in Big Tech should not be allowed to hire guest workers to fill entry- and mid-level information technology positions. Those jobs should go to American workers who have Constitutional law form a union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.
It should never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from abroad than an American worker.
Mr. Musk, Mr. Ramaswamy and others have argued that we need a highly skilled and well-educated workforce. They have a right. But the answer is not to bring in cheap labor from abroad.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The answer is to first hire skilled American workers and make sure we have an education system that produces the kind of workforce our country needs for the jobs of the future. And it’s not just engineering. We desperately need more doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, electricians, plumbers and a host of other professions.
Bottom line: we need an economy that works for everyone, not just a few. And one way we’re doing that is by making major reforms to the H-1B program and other fatally flawed guest worker programs.
