Letter to UC President Janet Napolitano on UCSF IT Outsourcing

January 10, 2017

The Honorable Janet Napolitano
President, University of California
Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin Street, 12th Floor
Oakland, California 94607

VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

Dear Ms. Napolitano,

News reports suggest that the University of California intends to outsource substantial IT work to HCL Technologies (“HCL”) through a $50 million contract that is being implemented at the University of California’s San Francisco (“UCSF”) campus and applicable to the entire university system.[1] On behalf of the 22 national and international unions in the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE), I strongly urge you to rescind the university’s apparent decision to layoff 79 employees at UCSF and replace them with HCL employees in India.

The university’s arrangement with HCL violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law governing the H-1B visa program. As I believe you are aware from your time as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Congress intended the H-1B visa program to allow employers to hire guest workers when there are not enough American workers to fill available jobs.[2] The H-1B program was never meant as a way for employers to replace U.S. workers with cheaper workers in the United States or abroad[3] – which is exactly what the University of California appears to be doing in this instance.

I am also disturbed by the fact that the University of California believes laying-off hardworking Californians in favor of cheaper, more exploitable guest workers is consistent with its public mission. The women and men who will lose their jobs in February not only answered the call to pursue STEM careers, they chose a life of public service. In exchange for decades of dedication to the university, they are set to receive termination notices and a future filled with economic uncertainty.

DPE does not oppose the existence of the H-1B visa program, but we are compelled to speak up when employers use it to displace U.S. workers for the sake of cost savings, like what is happening at UCSF. Fortunately, it appears there is still time for you to right this wrong by stopping the impending layoffs of 79 IT professionals. We urge you to do so.

With thanks for your time and consideration –

Sincerely,

Paul E. Almeida
President


cc: The Honorable Charles E. Grassley
      The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
      The Honorable Robert Goodlatte
      The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.

[1] Patrick Thibodeau, “University of California hires India-based IT outsourcer, lays off tech workers,” ComputerWorld, September 7, 2016. 

[2] Louis Hanson. “After pink slips, UCSF workers train their foreign replacements,” The Mercury News, November 3, 2016.

[3] Ellen Wasem, “H-1B Visas: Legislative History, Trends over Time, and Pathways to Permanent Residence,” Congressional Research Service, March 20, 2006.