Letter on the Markup of the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act, H.R. 170
November 14, 2017
The Honorable Robert Goodlatte The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
Chairman Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary Committee on the Judiciary
United States House of Representatives United States House of Representatives
2138 Rayburn House Office Building 2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515 Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (H.R. 170)
Dear Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers:
On behalf of the 23 national unions in the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE), I write to inform you that, absent improvements described below, DPE cannot support the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 170 that we understand Representative Issa will introduce at the House Judiciary Committee’s November 8, 2017, markup of H.R. 170, the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act.
We appreciate Rep. Issa’s recognition that the H-1B visa program is in need of reform that must include increased, funded enforcement of the program’s rules; greater protections against displacement; and higher wages for people working on H-1B visas. However, H.R. 170’s provisions would only apply to H-1B dependent employers. Most H-1B employers will still not be required to first look for an available, qualified U.S. worker or to promise that they will not fire existing U.S. workers in place of H-1B workers. Most employers will also continue to be able to pay H-1B workers at levels well below that of equivalent U.S. workers. Meanwhile, H.R. 170 does nothing to change the power dynamics within the program that make H-1B workers vulnerable to coercion, exploitation, and retaliation.
H.R. 170’s limited scope also means that the bill will not accomplish its objective to stop outsourcing through the H-1B visa program. While H.R. 170 would establish new requirements for H-1B dependent employers that place H-1B workers at a third party worksite, these requirements do not extend to non H-1B dependent employers placing H-1B workers at third party worksites. We expect corporations will contract with non H-1B dependent employers that are engaged in the outsourcing and offshoring of work since plenty of such companies exist. Accenture, for instance, is not an H-1B dependent employer, but it hired over 6,800 H-1B workers in Fiscal Year 2016. When Health Care Service Company in Illinois laid off approximately 540 IT professionals in 2016, it replaced them with contracted H-1B workers employed by Accenture and Cognizant Technology Solutions. The same is true for New York Life Insurance Company, who in 2014 laid off approximately 300 accounting and IT employees, replacing them with contracted H-1B workers employed by Accenture and Tata Consultancy Services.
H.R. 170 also would weaken the H-1B dependent employer definition by lifting the threshold from at least 15 percent of employees working on H-1B visas to 20 percent of full-time equivalent employees for employers with at least 51 employees. As a result, fewer, not more employers will be subject to the bill’s provisions that are intended to protect workers.
To account for the amendment’s weaknesses, DPE urges the committee to make the following improvements to H.R. 170’s substitute language:
· Extend H.R. 170’s provisions to any third party placement of H-1B workers: If Congress is serious about stopping employers from using the H-1B visa to outsource work and displace American workers, then it should stop this practice in all instances, not just in situations involving H-1B dependent employers.
· Strengthen the H-1B dependent employer definition: Employers who rely on the H-1B visa program to hire ten percent of their workforce must be considered H-1B dependent. Improving the H-1B dependent employer definition will strengthen H.R. 170 by increasing the number of people that it would protect.
· Count L-1 workers in the determination of H-1B dependent status: A government audit found that the top users of the L-1 visa are many of the very same companies H.R. 170 purports to target with tougher enforcement. Including L-1 workers in the tally that determines an employer’s H-1B dependent status will help ensure existing H-1B dependent companies cannot outrun the bill’s requirements by simply turning to the L-1 program.
Even with these improvements added to it, H.R. 170 does not provide the type of whole scale reform that is needed to fix the H-1B visa program and the other high-skilled guest worker visa programs. DPE supports making the following four reforms to all high-skilled guest worker programs (H-1B, L-1, B-1 in lieu of H-1B, and OPT), which would ensure that high-skilled guest workers are used to complement, rather than displace U.S. workers. If there is a shortage of qualified U.S. workers and employers are already paying market wages as many claim, then employers should not fear these reforms. DPE recommends:
1) An increase in the prevailing wage standard for guest workers so that employers do not have an incentive to hire nonimmigrants to cut labor costs;
2) Requiring all employers to advertise and offer jobs to available, qualified U.S. workers and to attest that they will not replace existing U.S. workers with nonimmigrants;
3) Allowing nonimmigrants to self-petition for green cards; and
4) Robust enforcement of guest worker visa programs that includes regular audits of the top petitioners to ensure compliance with the above provisions and an effective mechanism for nonimmigrants and U.S. workers to report violations without fear of retaliation.
Finally, the lack of data on these guest worker visa programs allows employers to evade scrutiny. Congress should ensure that the public is provided with all available data, including how many nonimmigrants are in the country; occupation, employer, and work location information; and how much they are actually being paid.
If you have any questions, please contact DPE Legislative and Outreach Director, Michael Wasser at (202) 638-0320 x.119.
Sincerely,
Paul E. Almeida, President