The San Jose Business Journal reports on a new study released last week which argues that the 65,000 H-1B visas available for highly skilled foreign workers is not nearly enough, and that despite a weak US economy, demand for these temporary work visas will continue to far exceed the supply.  The study, conducted by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), surveyed every company listed in the S&P 500; the companies posted a combined 140,000 tech-worker openings in January for people who have at least an undergraduate degree; the timing, NFAP feels, is not coincidence.  "We don’t see these kinds of job openings as a temporary phenomenon," said NFAP Executive Director Stuart Anderson.   

In recent years, the high-tech industry has been pushing Congress to increase the cap on H-1B visas, arguing that US companies need foreign engineers and scientist because there aren’t enough Americans to fill these jobs.  Microsoft chairman Bill Gates urged the House Immigration Subcommittee last week to make it easier for large tech companies to hire foreign workers, a workforce that has the skills and education these companies need to survive.  In addition, Google and Cisco have been closely working on the issue with Compete America , a coalition of corporations, educators, research institutions and trade associations committed to making sure US employers can hire and retain the world’s best talent.  Cisco spokesperson Jennifer Greeson says its strategy is also to recruit and hire the best and most qualified individuals; unfortunately, she says there is an ever-increasing shortage of US workers with the skills necessary to fill certain types of engineering and science positions.  

While tech-industry heavyweights are feeling the pressure of being unable to hire the desired amount of foreign professionals, the dearth of available H-1B visas leads smaller companies to suffer as well.  "The tech-worker shortage may be even more serious for smaller firms, which don’t have the resources large companies have to recruit talent," says Christopher Hansen, president of AeA, a tech-industry trade association.  "These companies could become the next Microsoft or Google Inc., but they’ll never get there if they can’t get the talent."  

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A group of 500 foreign welders and pipefitters brought in to work at Gulf Coast oil rig yards after Hurricane Katrina said last week that they had sued their employer, claiming they were lured with false promises of permanent-resident status, forced to live in inhumane conditions and then threatened when they protested.  As first reported by The New York Times, the workers were recruited in India and the United Arab Emirates and brought in late 2006 and early 2007 under the US temporary guest worker program.  They worked at Signal International, an oil rig repair and construction company in Pascagoula , Mississippi , and Orange , Texas .  The company says it had brought them in to supplement a labor force depleted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  

At a press conference, the workers’ lawyers, members of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that their clients had given up life savings, sold family jewelry, and paid up to $20,000 in immigration and travel fees after being assured that the company would help them to become permanent US residents.  In a statement following the suits, the company called the workers’ charges "baseless and unfounded" and said it had spent "over $7 million constructing state-of-the-art housing complexes" for the workers.  The company said that the "vast majority of the workers" recruited had been satisfied with their conditions and that the workers were being paid "in excess" of prevailing rates and in full compliance with the law.  

The claims made by the company were disputed by the workers and their advocates.  Ignorant of American immigration law, advocates said, the workers were unaware that they had been brought in only temporarily.  

The workers’ assertions are the latest in a series of complaints about exploitation of foreign laborers on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.  Previous complaints involved Hispanic hotel and construction workers and farm laborers and have centered on low pay and harsh working conditions.  In the summer of 2006, Hispanic hotel workers sued a prominent New Orleans developer over inadequate pay, and last month, fruit pickers walked off the job in a parish north of New Orleans over exploitative conditions.  The Southern Poverty Law Center has also sued on behalf of immigrant workers involved in the reconstruction and cleanup of New Orleans after the storm.  It maintains that immigrants brought in under the guest worker program are "systematically exploited and abused," all over the country.