In April of 2008 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) televised a show called “Blood, Sweat, & T-Shirts”. It is now showing in the U.S. on the Planet Green channel.

The show is about six snotty young Britishers who think it it will be “rad” go to India to find out what working in a garment sweatshop is all about. Their first workplace was in New Delhi at Shahi Enterprises — known as one of the best garment factories to work at in India. If that is the best place to work you wonder what working for a real sweatshop is like — and those Brits find out.

As with most reality TV, some of the scenes came across as slightly contrived. Like for instance, their Indian factory floor boss had a tough time holding back from laughing as he ordered the young Brits around, but make no mistake about it, that guy is mean and tough and you just know he isn’t nearly as nice to his regular workers.

I highly recommend the show because it’s thought provoking and amusing. The preview on Planet Green is better than the one on BBC. The toilet scene is a classic!

Here are some excellent links:

• Mail Online: “Why six British youngsters will never buy high street fashion again after visiting India’s sweatshops.”
• The Independent: “Last Night’s TV: They’re cottoning on to the real world”
• BBC Video Short: Fashionista works in India
• Youtube Video: Newsnight Special on BBC

Perhaps the one profound thing said in the entire show was from Georgina:

“You see all the Indian people working so hard and being paid so little for it, and it makes you feel so ashamed.”

Yes, we should all feel ashamed, but not necessarily for the obvious reason the producers of the show would lead us to: that the solution to the exploitation is “fair trade” instead of “free trade”. Brits and Americans should feel ignominy for allowing their leaders to turn their own countries into hellholes like India!

A second episode of the show aired on the BBC about the experiences of the young Brits when they go to the real sweatshops. Green Planet hasn’t scheduled the second show.

Byron Harris, the Dallas reporter who did the exposé on the importation of Italian Welders below, is also the fellow who blew the whistle earlier on aircraft mechanics who couldn’t speak English, imported on NAFTA TN visas.

Harris wrote:

The problem with many Mexican mechanics is not necessarily their skill level, but that they don t speak or read English. They can t read the repair manuals that are in English, or communicate with the supervisors who have to sign off on their work.

“I would work with these guys sometimes and I was assigned a couple of mechanics,” said one certified American mechanic who used to work for SAA. “I would help them out. But, when it came to critical issues such as operation of flight control and systems and radio correspondence, I would refuse.”

See Harris’s story Loophole allows for easy immigration for aircraft mechanics, [WFAA.com, June 17, 2009]and my blog post TN visa used to import Mexican aircraft mechanics. Congratulate Harris.

Since my commentary (11/25/09) about the Italian welders who are working in the U.S. illegally on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Texas (“Italian Welders Work On Dallas Bridge — Texans Remain Jobless“) was published, there has been a miraculous turnaround.

According to a February 5th news story on WFAA-TV by Byron Harris: “Italian workers lose visas after WFAA investigation“. It might sound too good to be true, so be sure to go to the website to see the video report.

After the WFAA story broke in November, outraged unions and concerned Americans raised a big stink over the Italian welders. They let the Texas state government know that they weren’t happy to see Italian welders take away jobs that belonged to Americans.

After the News 8 story aired last November, the Texas Department of Transportation — the “customer” for the bridge — requested an investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Byron Harris and WFAA definitely deserve the lion’s share of the credit for the good news. Most of the national news media ignored this story even while it was going radioactive in Texas. Harris was the lone journalist that dug the story up, and WFAA had the courage to put it on TV. In this age of politically correct mainstream media, it’s very rare to see a story like this to make it to television.

Give a tip of the hat to Byron Harris and WFAA Channel 8!

So, here is the good news:

When seven of the eleven workers returned to Italy for Christmas, their visas were revoked by the U.S. Department of State. Four Italians remain in Dallas.

Not all of the workers are employed by Cimolai, which manufactures the unique steel. Some are simply employees of an Italian steel assembly firm. Additionally, not all the workers are from Italy, with special Italian skills; some are from Slovakia.

After the News 8 story aired last November, the Texas Department of Transportation — the “customer” for the bridge — requested an investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

When seven of the eleven workers returned to Italy for Christmas, their visas were revoked by the U.S. Department of State. Four Italians remain in Dallas.

Harris didn’t explain why the remaining Italians are still working in Dallas. It seems as though ICE is giving them a free ticket to remain in the U.S. as long as they don’t leave and try to come back. There is no question the Italians should be deported because they used the B-1 visa improperly, so why are they allowed to stay in the U.S.?

Oh, and Cimolai’s claim that they couldn’t find Americans that had the special welding skills needed to do the job were exposed as lies in a real real zinger — not all the workers were Italian. Slovakians were also used, which lends credibility to the claim that the company Cimolai was using foreigners to cut labor costs.

Not all of the workers are employed by Cimolai, which manufactures the unique steel. Some are simply employees of an Italian steel assembly firm. Additionally, not all the workers are from Italy, with special Italian skills; some are from Slovakia.

You’ve heard of exchange students, right? Ever wonder how that got started?

The purpose of the Program is to provide foreign nationals with opportunities to participate in educational and cultural programs in the United States and return home to share their experiences, and to encourage Americans to participate in educational and cultural programs in other countries. Exchange visitors enter the United States on a J visa.
Fulbright-Hays Act, 1961, Title 22: Foreign Relations

Fulbright’s 1961 legislation seemed innocent enough, although the same thing could be said of most legislation when it’s being sold to the public. The idea for the Fulbright-Hays bill goes back to 1940 when Nelson Rockefeller came up with a concept he called an “exchange of persons program.” Fifty years later the program morphed into just another cheap labor subdidy for big business: “Publix Gets Publicity For Hiring Foreign Students“. (more…)

When I saw a webpage by the “National Policy Institute (NPI)” titled Bill Gates: White kids not eligible for my scholarships I thought it was just a baseless rant. The commentary didn’t provide any references which added to my skepticism that it was a hoax
.

Bill Gates has made his scholarship fund off limits to white teenagers. The Gates Millennium Scholarship fund is financed by a $1 Billion endowment Bill Gates made in 1999. The fund explicitly denies eligibility to white students.

“Students are eligible to be considered for a GMS scholarship if they: Are African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander American, or Hispanic American;”

I decided to do some research in order to debunk this rumor before it starts racing through the internet. Much to my displeasure I confirmed that it’s true that the Bill Gates scholarship intentionally excludes white people. Actually it excludes many races besides Caucasian. Keep reading to understand how I came to that conclusion — and don’t worry — I will provide enough references to make your head spin! (more…)

The popular supermarket chain Publix received publicity over their hiring practices when a Fort Myers, Florida newspaper revealed that “Publix hires foreign workers.” [By Amy Bennett Williams, News-Press.Com, January 19, 2010] Here are a few choice excerpts from the article:

For the last three years, Publix has hired hundreds of Peruvians and Brazilians for its stores in south Fort Myers and Naples during tourist season because the company says it can’t find locals to fill those spots.

The South American cashiers, baggers, deli, bakery and grocery clerks work part time at more than 20 area locations, said Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten. The company began hiring them in late 2008, when Lee’s unemployment was about 6 percent.

Lee County’s unemployment rate is almost 14 percent and about 38,000 residents are jobless,

The Publix workers, who are forbidden to speak to the press, have short-term visas known as J1s and are college students, Patten said.

Although numbers aren’t broken down by county, there are 7,756 J1 visa-holders in Florida, said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Darlene Kirk. The department calls it an “Exchange Visitor Program,” allowing foreign college students to “become directly involved in the daily life of the people of the United States through travel and temporary work.” Publix doesn’t reciprocate in the exchange.

“Since our students come from the southern hemisphere,” Patten said, “their summer break coincides nicely with our winter tourist season. … These students are not replacing American workers.”

Patten is playing with words because common sense would dictate that even if Publix hasn’t directly replaced local Floridians they have most certainly displaced them by denying them job offers. Florida is suffering a 14% jobless rate so there should be no question there are many Americans who would take these jobs. This is just one example of a Floridian that needs a job at Publix:

The South American cashiers, baggers, deli, bakery and grocery clerks work part time at more than 20 area locations, said Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten. The company began hiring them in late 2008, when Lee’s unemployment was about 6 percent.

“It is our experience that potential workers that live year ’round near our stores are interested in permanent jobs, not temporary ones,” Patten said.

Many Southwest Florida jobseekers and the people who help them disagree.

“Are you kidding?” asked Rita Hursell. The 46-year-old nurse’s aide, who’s been out of work since 2007, is on food stamps and lives with her parents in Lehigh Acres.

The biggest losers are high school and college aged Americans who can’t find jobs because they are being displaced by foreign students. This anonymous comment to the article is very illustrative of the problem:

I teach at a high school here in Lee County and when I showed this article to my students they were very upset. Many have been trying to find jobs for almost a year and can not. Publix is one of the jobs I recommend since I have family working there (in Jacksonville) and they love the benefits and work environment. Now, we find out they are denying local kids the opportunity to work and learn how to work so they can bring in cheap labor from out of the country. Yeah, today’s youth are not what they used to be, but who is going to step up and help the schools train tomorrows leaders? We can’t do it by ourselves.

This is a poignant quote from the article that should be kept in mind when you read what kind of jobs the foreign students are hired for:

Barbara Hartman, spokeswoman for the Career and Service Center in Fort Myers says she’s surprised Publix would turn to foreign workers. Usually, she says, companies hire non-citizens for positions that are either specialized or in remote places — neither of which the Publix jobs are.

“I’m just at a loss as to why they would not be able to find enough candidates to fill those positions,” Hartman said.

The following Q&A from the article (right side column) is loaded with information about how Publix is using the J-1 Visa program to hire foreign students:

Q&A with Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten about its J1 visa workers

• How many J1 workers does Publix employ in Southwest
Florida, at which stores do they work and what they do?

We have more than 100 students working in various positions such as cashiers, baggers, deli clerks, bakery clerks and grocery clerks.

• How does Publix find them?

We work with a third party that helps coordinate students who want to be a part of this program with employers who have agreed to participate in the program.

Perhaps the best way to determine the desirability of Publix jobs in Florida is to go to one of those “third party” bodyshops to see more details. Interlatina is a good place to start because they produced a flyer to recruit foreign student employees for Publix. The flyer makes such a good case for working at Publix it’s difficult to imagine why Americans can’t be found for these positions:

• Founded in 1930, Publix Super Markets is the largest and fastest-growing employee-owned supermarket chain in the United States.
• Publix’s commitment to diversity has contributed to our success in being a great place to work and shop.
• Based in Naples, Florida, most housing and job locations are situated close to the beach and surrounded by the clear blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Warm sunny weather year round, and great water recreational activities to do.
• Live near the beach parties, amusement parks, and nightlife of Naples, Miami and Orlando, FL
• Visit Miami (2 hours) and Orlando (3 hours)
• Wage per hour is $9.50 with average 30-35 hrs/week
• Shifts vary from 4 to 8 hours; numbers of hours per week may not be guaranteed and may fluctuate depending on business needs.
• Over time may be available.

Interlatina has additional information on their website about the jobs at Publix. The following are some excerpts from an employee agreement (link) with a company called SAGE, which appears to be far more than a bodyshop that contracts labor. On close inspection the details of this agreement may seem odd to Americans who aren’t familiar with indentured servitude.

• Company Name: Southern Amenity Global Inc (SAGE)
• Job Location: Publix Super Markets in Naples, Florida and Fort Myers, Florida
• Available Positions:Retail Store Clerk (50)
• Start Date: January 8th  or January 9th, 2010
• End Date: March 23rd – April 15th, 2010
• Detailed Description: All positions are within Publix Super Markets. Positions include: cashiers, meat department, produce department, deli counter, pastry department, and shelf stocker.  All positions may include cleaning duties throughout the store.
• English Requirement: Conversational English is required for this job. If you arrive to your employer and you do not have conversational English, you will not be offered this position.
• Required Job Training: All employees will be responsible for learning every job, including all set up and cleanup duties.
• Salary:$9.50 per hour
• Hours: 33 hours per week minimum.  You will be offered positions which may include weekends, late shifts, or overnight shifts. All assignments are by Publix management.
• Overtime: You may have the possibility to work overtime at a rate of $14.25 per hour.
• Dress Code: A Publix shirt will be provided to you by the company. You will need to bring black pants, khaki pants, and non slippery shoes with you.
• Housing: The cost of housing is $110 per week. Smoking and pets are ABSOLUTELY Prohibited in all SAGE housing.  Violation will result in a $100 charge per violation.  If an individual offender is not identified, charges will be placed against house and divided among tenants equally.
• Utility Bill: SAGE will cover per apartment $150 Utility Bill and $75 Water Bill per billing cycle.  All extra charges will be applied to an excess charge monthly housing bill. This will be divided by the number of students in the house.
• Transportation: will be provided to and from work at the cost of $5.00 per one way ticket.
• Paycheck Info: You will receive your paychecks at the store every week.
• SOCIAL SECURITY: Your employer will arrange for you to go to the social security office within 15 days of your arrival. You will be able to work before you apply for your social security card.

In my next blog, I will explain how Publix and hundreds of other employers use the J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program to hire foreign “students”. Until then, you can read this State Department Document: Exchange Visitor (J) Visas. And you can email William Crenshaw, President of Publix, and email Maria Brous, Publix Director of Media & Community Relations about Publix’s hiring policies.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a bureaucratic decree that allows additional countries to send guest workers to the U.S. by participating in the H-2A and H-2B visa programs.

Croatia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ireland, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, and Uruguay are countries whose nationals are eligible to participate in the H-2A and H-2B programs.

These are the countries that are already on the fast track list for H-2A/H-2B visas:

Argentina, Australia, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, The Netherlands, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay.

Just in case Napolitano missed a country that wants to send cheap laborers to the U.S., she included a gaping loophole that allows any country to participate — albeit employers will probably have to file a few additional forms to show why the worker they want to import is vital to the best interests of the U.S. From the Napolitano decree:

On a case-by-case basis, DHS may allow a worker from a country not on the participating country list to be eligible for the H-2A or H-2B program if such participation is in the interest of the United States.

Here are a few details on the two visas, and one other that should be cosidered:

• H-2A: Used for farm and agricultural workers.  This category can be interpreted to mean anybody that works on farms, ranches, gardens, or anywhere else that produces farm products. The DOL defines H-2A categories as being work of a temporary or seasonal nature usually in relation to the production and/or harvesting of a crop. The most important thing to know about H-2A visas is that there is NO YEARLY CAP TO THE NUMBERS ADMITTED!
• H-2B: These visas are used for skilled blue collar workers — like for instance welders. The numerical limit set by Congress per fiscal year is 66,000. H-2B visas can be extended for up to three years.
• H-4: All H-2A and H-2B visa holders can get H-4 visas for spouses and unmarried children under 21 years of age. H-4 visa holders cannot get authorization to work, but they are entitled to all government services offered to citizens. If the married couple births a child while they are in the U.S. that child becomes a jackpot baby.

Napolitano’s decree will almost certainly result in an increase in the numbers of H-2A visas issued. Expect the H-2B visa cap to be reached far earlier as demand increases and when that happens the cheap labor lobby will have an excellent reason to argue that the cap must be raised.

Napolitano’s actions seem to violate the U.S. Constitution which designates Congress the responsibility of regulating  immigration ( Article 1, Section 8, U.S. Constitution  The Congress shall have Power … To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization….”). Unfortunately the Constitution is rarely considered nowadays so Napolitano’s actions are not unprecedented. Here are two more examples of legislation by bureaucratic fiat:

• Optional Practical Training (OPT): in 2008 Michael Chertoff made a rule change to extend the time period of OPT from 12 months to 27. The legislation by bureaucratic fiat was signed off and approved by President Bush in 2008.  Extending the visas was tantamount to a de facto H-B visa increase.
  
• Trade NAFTA (TN): In 2008 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Department of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez made a rule change that increased the duration of the TN visa from one year to three. This rule changed messed with both international trade agreements and immigration–but there was never a whisper of complaint from Congress.
  

I will be a guest on the Talkback show with Chuck Wilder on Wednesday 1:30 p.m. PST. For live streaming audio go to CRN Digital Talk Radio (encore show starts at 8 pm PST). For program details click Chuck Wilder’s blog.

Yesterday censorship on the internet just got a whole lot worse. On January 25, 2010 the website guestworkerfraud.com run by John Doe #3 has been wiped off the internet by request of the H-1B bodyshop APEX and by order of Judge James P. Hurley of The Superior Court of New Jersey. The website lasted slightly more than a month since ITgrunt.com was removed on December 23, 2009.

Network Solutions disabled the domain and put a “legal lock” on the account. Until further notice NS will not let Doe #3 have the domain name back until they decide to release it. Godaddy took similar actions to censor “Tunnel Rat” at ITgrunt.com.

I contacted John Doe #3 to ask if he had received a notice before his site was disabled: he replied that there was no notice at all — not even an email or a phone call. Doe #3 called Network Solutions and was told by a NS representative that his complaint will be sent it to their legal department, which is supposed to get back in touch with Doe #3 within 24 hours.

Best case scenario at this point would be that NS would agree to give back the domain name to Doe #3, which is property he paid for. You can still view the contents of the website by using Google cache, but expect pages to disappear rapidly.

Hopefully Doe #3 has better luck than Tunnel Rat because so far Godaddy has refused to give back the ITgrunt domain name.

What all of this means in a practical sense is that Doe #3 and Tunnel Rat cannot move their websites to a different web host because their domain name has been been hijacked. What this would be comparable to is if Microsoft.com had to change their name merely because a foolish judge in New Jersey ordered their domain to be removed from the internet. Of course that would never happen to Microsoft because they have lawyers, but small web sites containing content that someone find offensive for any reason is fair game for censorship.

Everyone that is concerned about freedom of speech on the internet should pay close attention to what is unfolding here because this unwarranted censorship is setting a very dangerous precedent. To get a full background on this story read my previous commentaries:

H-1B Bodyshop vs. U.S. First Amendment: The Case Of “Tunnel Rat”, December 27, 2009

APEX vs John Does, 4 January 2010

EFF reprimands Judge Hurley and APEX for internet censorship, 10 January 2010

ITgrunt isn’t going down without a fight. He set up a new domain name. Check out TechInsurgent: Life of an I.T. Grunt, Notes From The Trenches of Software Development. He has an explanation about what he had to do to get back online and it’s deeply disturbing considering that the United States is supposed to have a Constitution that protects free speech.

Greetings from Canada

I am now registered in Japan and hosted by wonderful Cirrus Tech, based in Toronto.

This will be my command post while I fight that pack of jackals that got me shut down in America. I will be posting links to Apex case and you can get frequent updates.

In short, the Apex case has blown up all over the internet. Few Americans like the idea of an Indian national getting a corrupt judge and a mob lawyer to shut down web sites and domains over some fabricated libel case that revolves around an illegal contract.

The Dallas Federal Reserve and the Wall Street Journal created quite an internet buzz when they used the term “virtual immigration” to describe the offshoring of jobs. The following excerpts were copied from the published article on the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank website. The first two quotes merely define what “virtual immigration” and seem innocent enough, but the next two are very elitist in tone as immigration and offshore outsourcing are reduced to commoditized financial transactions.

Labor Market Globalization in the Recession and Beyond
by W. Michael Cox, Richard Alm and Justyna Dymerska
December 2009

• Today’s computer and telecommunications technologies have provided a way to circumvent barriers to labor market globalization’s traditional mode — the physical immigration that brings the workers to the work. This virtual immigration moves the work rather than the workers, and it typically involves the long-distance delivery of services.
• Both physical and virtual immigration have contributed to globalization of the labor force over the past quarter century. This integration has largely taken place in good times, where unemployment has been low and the number of jobs has been increasing, particularly in the U.S. Recessions have been brief and shallow.
• Virtual immigration is an intuitively satisfying concept for the Information Age, but no country’s labor market reports measure it explicitly. So how can we track it? Much of virtual immigrants’ work involves importing or exporting specialized knowledge and information — just the kind of intangibles that distinguish services from goods in international trade.
• For U.S. companies and entrepreneurs, virtual immigration creates opportunities. Offshoring cuts production costs and enhances global competitiveness, and U.S. services firms grow and profit by expanding overseas. For workers, virtual immigration brings competition. U.S. computer programmers vie with lower-wage rivals in India, while U.S. lawyers, architects and consultants take on foreign countries’ homegrown firms.

I was curious enough about the term “virtual immigration” that I decided to research its etymology in order to gain insight on what it meant, how it has been used in the past, and to hopefully discover who invented the term. As it turns out, the term has been in use for quite awhile, mainly among economists. The following essay is a summary of what I found, followed by a conclusion. (more…)