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GUEST COMMENTARY:  THE PRICE OF PESSIMISM, BY GARY ENDELMAN
DISCLAIMER: 

Gary Endelman practices immigration law at BP Amoco Corporation. The opinions expressed in this column are purely personal and do not represent the views or beliefs of BP Amoco Corporation in any way. This article is copyrighted by ILW.COM and is reprinted with permission. You can read other articles by Mr. Endelman, and subscribe to future articles at www.ilw.com 
 April 22, 2000 --  Under the leadership of Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) the House Immigration Subcommittee has approved a revised version of the Technology Worker Temporary Relief Act that, on its face, should have Silicon Valley jumping for joy: Unlimited H-1B’s for the next 3 years! Holy Cow Batman, the high-tech silence is deafening. What is going on? Poison pills are not hard to find. Opponents point to the following: (1) Additional visas remain yoked to final regulations from the INS and USDOL implementing the 1998 American Competitiveness Workforce Improvement Act. (2) Employers must hire more U.S. workers than in the previous year at higher wages. (3) Part-time H-1B’s and work experience equivalency goes away; (4) all H-1B employers must have at least 0,000 in gross assets; (5) the name, education and salary of all H-1B beneficiaries goes up on the internet; (6) a minimum H-1B wage is set at ,000 and (7) use of B-1 business visas in lieu of the H-1B is eliminated. Chairman Smith has not made the elimination of hunger, achievement of world peace and/or finding a cure for cancer as conditions precedent for H-1B approval, though those may yet remain open for discussion.
Congressman Smith continues to maintain that “there is still no objective study that documents a shortage of American high tech workers,” while the Information Technology Association of America in a new report entitled “Bridging the Gap: Information Technology Skills for a New Millennium,” claims that 1 technology job in 12, or over 840,000 positions, will remain vacant this year for lack of qualified applicants. In a recent hearing on “21st Century Worker Shortages,” Congressman Peter Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, warned “many employers find themselves facing economic ruin since they can not hire enough workers to maintain production levels.” At this same hearing, Elizabeth Dickson, a Human Resources Specialist and member of the Global Mobility Services Team for the Ingersoll-Rand Company predicted that, if the “Serious work shortage” is not solved, likely consequences will range from “a down turn in the economy to companies seeking more often to move outside the boundaries of the U.S. borders.”
At a time when according to the New York Times, (January 26, 2000) the number of bachelors degrees in computer science has steadily declined from 42,200 in 1986 to 24,800 in 1995, there are over 180,000 information technology positions in the US today with an expected growth over 50,000 in the next few years. Ingersoll-Rand, which, among other things, specializes in climate control technologies, can hardly be expected to hire only US trained meteorologists when there are only five American universities with Master’s programs in this discipline. Experts relate that many Y2k-related projects had to be outsourced to information technology consultants abroad in order to meet the deadline. At a time when the Clinton Administration wants to raise H-1B processing fees as a way to fund worker retraining initiatives, a 1998 nationwide survey conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers, indicated that 9 out of 10 manufacturers offer training programs at all levels, while nearly 40% devoted between 2% and 5% of payroll to personnel development. Many large companies collaborate with community colleges and vocational technical schools in their respective communities; provide tuition reimbursement for employees pursuing bachelor’s and advanced degrees; offer corporate on-site training initiatives and have even forged partnerships with high school to train and hopefully recruit high school students for skilled jobs upon graduation. Profit and enlightened self-interest, not a desire to justify an increase in the H-1B cap, motivate such diversified corporate outreach.
In a recent speech to bankers and investment brokers in St. Louis, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan identified greater spending on new technology as having resulted in a new and sustained level of worker productivity. Such enhanced productivity was, in Greenspan’s view, the single most important factor in allowing the economy to grow without reigniting the fires of inflation. The perceived problem of cheap foreign labor that motivated opposition to more employment-based immigration is no longer an important issue in the new economic world of global competitiveness. In order to strengthen the U.S. economy on which we all depend, the focus of any labor control mechanism should be to attract and retain essential workers for a wide variety of jobs in both the old and new economies. Talent not national origin should count. While opponents of employment -based immigration continue to worry about law wages for foreign workers who manage to get and stay here, Peter Drucker reminds us in his new book on Management Challenges for the 21st Century that the real prize is productivity and any immigration system must be grounded on that. Rather than imposing more severe roadblocks to employment-based immigration, Congress should return to its historic support of both more labor controls and more immigration. Protection of U.S. workers is most fully achieved not when current jobs are protected, but when new ones are created. Properly understood, such protection should not prevent employment-based immigration but make it more possible.
Nothing characterizes Lamar Smith’s immigration policy so much as its pessimism. He and his allies shrink from global competition precisely because they think we cannot win. In opposing such pessimism, we must look at how immigrants relate to our economy in a new and different way, a way that permits us to view immigration not as a political problem but an economic strategy designed to enhance productivity, restrain inflation and sustain prosperity for the long term. Such a system will allow, indeed encourage, those immigrants who contribute to our national well being to claim their rightful share of these riches.
At its best, America has always believed that the future would outshine the past, that the promise of plenty could be enjoyed by those who worked for it. At the dawn of the Space Age, when President Kennedy committed this nation to putting a man on the moon and bringing him back alive, he announced our intention to be not merely a participant in the space race, but to lead it. It is precisely that optimism on which our future as a nation continues to depend. The path of pessimism charted by Representative Smith leads in a very perilous direction, one chosen by the Chinese centuries ago. In the 14th-15th centuries, China had the greatest ocean going fleet in the world. So vast was their navy that the range of its ships reached until the southern tip of Africa and back again. Suddenly, a revolution swept China and, in a tragic act of national despair, the Chinese burnt all of their ships and retreated for centuries behind a high wall of cultural splendor. Had they not lost their will, had they continued to believe in themselves, the Chinese would have built even more ships and sent them to discover the riches of a new world; China, not the upstart nations of Western Europe, would have ruled the future for centuries to come. The Chinese paid a very high price for their pessimism. If we follow Lamar Smith, America will endure the same fate. Any takers?
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