Thank you for the comment! Keep up the great work as VC of the Cobb GOP!

John,

You’re doing a great job ‘outing’ certain employment lawyers in this regard. We’ve reached a sad moment in our democracy when American attorneys educate American employers on how to hire undocumented aliens ahead of American citizens. The Cohen & Grigsby video is outrageous. Fishing for illegals over job-eager U.S. workers amounts to a ‘race for the bottom’ for wages. The job market is tough enough for many in competing with our own qualified folks for available jobs. Rigging the system to hire illegals over interested U.S. workers is hideous. I appreciate your work. Keep it up!

Bob

FYI

GRASSLEY LOOKS FOR ANSWERS TO VIDEO ADVISING HOW TO SKIRT H-1B REGULATIONS

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley today sent a letter to a Pittsburgh law firm asking for the rationale behind a video posted on http://www.youtube.com that advises participants in a seminar on how to bypass qualified American workers when hiring foreign employees. Specifically in the video the firm advises businesses “to meet the requirements …as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal. And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. In a sense that sounds funny, but it’s what we’re trying to do here.”

A letter was also sent to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao asking about the level of fraud monitoring done at the Department.

Grassley sent the letters with Rep. Lamar Smith.

Here is a copy of the letter to the law firm as well as the letter to Chao.

June 21, 2007

Cohen & Grigsby

11 Stanwix Street

15th Floor

Pittsburgh, PA 15222-1319

To Whom It May Concern:

As members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, we have a responsibility to oversee and evaluate our country’s visa programs. We have become increasingly concerned about fraud and abuse of the H-1B program, and the impact of this program on American workers.

While many companies insist that they are not participating in fraud, many are finding loopholes around government rules and regulations in order to bring in cheaper foreign workers. These loopholes lead to abuse that ultimately displace qualified Americans. The abuse is evident thanks to a video produced by your firm during the Seventh Annual Immigration Law Update Seminar conducted in May 2007 in Pittsburgh.

In the video, Lawrence Lebowitz, director of marketing for your firm clearly states that an employer’s goal is “to meet the requirements…as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal. And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. In a sense that sounds funny, but it’s what we’re trying to do here.” In fact, Mr. Lebowitz states that other members of his team will help employers bypass Americans. The video provides evidence of how your firm recommends employers accomplish this.

The spirit of the H-1B visa program was intended to bring temporary workers to our country to fill a void in the high tech sector, and to enhance the United States’ position in the global marketplace. The video made by your firm advises potential employers that they can fulfill Department of Labor PERM certification requirements by advertising the position in places where they will not find the most qualified applicants. Your firm asserts that an employer can advertise in regional publications with limited circulation, while internally listing the job for a foreign worker. We would like you to please explain how this practice does not constitute outright discrimination based on nationality and why your firm so blatantly promotes this type of behavior.

When applications are received, firm members Jennifer Pack and Jennifer Barton tell employers how they can disqualify U.S. applicants based on their resume or by personal interview when the resume lists all requirements of the job posting. Very qualified applicants are brought in for an interview for the sole purpose of finding a basis to disqualify them. Why does your firm undermine the recruitment effort by coaching potential employers to “find a legal basis to disqualify Americans” to hire a foreign worker?

In addition to explaining the video, we respectfully request that your firm provide us with the number of H-1B visa holders who have been petitioned for or hired by your firm in the past five years. We would also appreciate knowing exactly how many and the names of your clients who have been assisted by your firm to bring in H-1B workers.

The H-1B positions are available in limited quantity each year and the PERM certification process was created to fill positions where no qualified U.S. worker is available. Your firm’s video advises employers how to hire only foreign labor, while making it nearly impossible for a qualified American worker to get the job. We look forward to hearing from you on how such advice is ethical and does not undermine the programs by enticing fraud and misuse.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley Lamar Smith

United States Senator United States Representative

Thanks for the tip!

This will open up a lot of opportunities for your work here. What’s the policy in terms of others posting clips? And if we’re allowed to, what is the html code needed to embed a video?

The law can be written to make what these people are doing illegal. I can’t imagine that if you asked a guy like Byron Dorgan or Jim Webb whether they feel this should be legal that they’d tell you “yes”.

I don’t even have to think about what Trent Lott or Mitch McConnell would say about it.

Food for thought…

Thank you for the links!

“When the market rhapsodizers instruct the American workforce that it must now compete with the developing world’s labor market, what they conveniently omit is that to do so, our workers must be willing to adopt a developing world’s lifestyle. Because that’s what the pay scale supports.” quoted from

read

“… it would be a sad loss for the nation if, over time, so many IT professionals were rendered jobless that we eventually began to lose our technological edge because, like manufacturing, technology was no longer done here.” quoted from

read

After reading the post do you support Congressman Tom Price in his job of killing wages and putting Americans out of work?

The law firm is getting tons of free publicity from dupes like you posting their advervideo on blogs. Savvy marketing!