[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 59 (Tuesday, May 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H3076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ``SHORTAGE'' OF INFORMATION TECHOLOGY WORKERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I have risen before to talk about the H-1B 
program, and I think it is time to do it again, because so many of our 
colleagues have not looked at this program.
  A lot of people say, ``H-1B, it sounds like a new Air Force plane.'' 
What in fact it is is a program which allows foreign workers to come 
here temporarily for a 6-year period and take jobs that otherwise would 
have gone to American citizens. We permit that when the companies have 
a hard time finding people with specific skills.
  In particular, the H-1B program was started back in 1990 to alleviate 
what was then seen as an anticipated shortage of scientists and 
engineers, particularly at a Ph.D. Level. I do not think that ever 
particularly was proven to have come about, because in the interim the 
Berlin Wall fell, and the demand by our defense industry was a lot less 
than we thought it should be.
  The problem with this program is that there is now no universally 
accepted definition of who these high-tech workers need to be, 
particularly as it goes to the information technology area. The reason 
I stress the information technology area is because under the current 
program, we allow 65,000 temporary workers to come in a year.
  The Information Technology Association of America is now coming to 
Congress and saying, 65,000 temporary workers is not enough. The fact 
of the matter is that we never came close to hitting 65,000 until last 
year. All of a sudden a lot of companies out there, particularly in the 
temporary training and temporary employee business, have discovered 
this as a way of making a lot of money.
  They have discovered a method whereby they can find workers who come 
from various countries, from Pakistan, from India, from Russia, and 
they can bring those workers in here, and they are really little more, 
Mr. Speaker, than indentured servants. While they have H-1B status, the 
visa is for an occupation, not for a certain person. That person can be 
underpaid, they can be forced to work 7 days a week until they get 
their green card, until they are forced to go back home again. How many 
of them are going to complain? In the meantime, these high-tech jobs 
are not going to our kids who are graduating from colleges and 
universities with degrees, and could easily be trained to go into these 
fields.
  In particular, in information technology, that industry has defined 
their technology so broadly as to try to overdemonstrate the need for 
IT workers. Yet, they define very narrowly what the skills are that are 
needed to fill these jobs.
  The Information Technology Association of America and the Commerce 
Department of the United States government defined the pool of 
qualified IT workers as those who have obtained a bachelor's degree in 
computer or information science. They did not consider degrees or 
certifications in computer or information science other than a B.A. 
degree in those areas. They did not stop and think that somebody who 
has a degree in business or social science or math or engineering or 
psychology or economics or education could be trained to do this 
technical work.
  As I have railed against this, some of these companies that are out 
there hiring these foreign citizens to take these jobs that I think 
American citizens could be trained to take, now all of a sudden they 
have begun to strike back. One of them wrote to the Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette this weekend. I was kind of amused by this. She owns a company, 
and this lady's name is Christine Posti. She owns a company called 
Posti & Associates.

  She says that I ask why our companies cannot do the right thing and 
train American workers. That is the question I do ask. Ms. Posti says 
that I am under the mistaken impression that business exists to educate 
our citizens, when really, it is up to the government to educate 
workers.
  I am amazed. It is now up to the Federal Government, that big Federal 
Government, that is supposed to go out and do all the job training for 
all the companies in America. They bear no responsibility. We are going 
to let big government take care of that. Who pays for that? The fact of 
the matter is that the taxpayers at every level, local property 
taxpayers, State taxpayers, Federal taxpayers, are being asked by 
people like Ms. Posti to go out and subsidize their companies. We are 
supposed to train people.
  If they cannot find people in the education system that are already 
trained to do it, they will go get foreign workers, bring them here, 
and have them take the jobs. What are our children supposed to do? What 
are our displaced workers supposed to be retrained to do? What kind of 
a society will we have in this country?
  If Members remember NAFTA, when we voted on NAFTA back in the 103rd 
Congress we were told, we are going to lose the manufacturing jobs. As 
we go from a manufacturing society into an information technology 
society, the new information technology jobs will go to our people. Now 
here we are, only 4 years later, and we are being told that our 
students and our workers are too dumb. We have to bring people in from 
other countries to do it.
  I would ask my friends and colleagues to take a look at the H-1B 
program. Do not be fooled. Keep Americans in the American jobs.

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