Microsoft, Intel Firings Stir Resentment Over Visas

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "CONNIE GUGLIELMO, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:" <cguglielmo1 () bloomberg net 
>
Date: February 20, 2009 12:18:21 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: (BN) Microsoft, Intel Firings Stir Resentment Over Visas

fyi

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Microsoft, Intel Firings Stir Resentment Over Visas (Update1)
2009-02-20 14:44:28.855 GMT


    (Updates share price in the eighth paragraph.)

By Dina Bass
    Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s plan to eliminate
U.S. workers after lobbying for more foreigner visas is stirring
resentment among lawmakers and employees.
    As many as 5,000 employees are being shown the door at
Microsoft, which uses more H1-B guest-worker visas than any
other U.S. company. Some employees and politicians say Microsoft
should get rid of foreigners first.
    “If they lay people off, are they going to think of
America first or are they going to think of the world first?”
Chuck Grassley, a Republican Senator from Iowa, said in an
interview. He sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer
Steve Ballmer the day after Microsoft announced the job cuts
last month, demanding Ballmer fire visa holders first.
    Across the technology industry, some of the biggest users
of H1-B visas are cutting jobs, including Intel Corp.,
International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
The firings at Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker,
came less than a year after Chairman Bill Gates lobbied Congress
for an expansion of the visa program.
    Even before Microsoft announced the cuts, its first-ever
companywide layoffs, comments on a blog run by an anonymous
Microsoft worker angrily debated getting rid of guest workers
first. The author of the Mini-Microsoft blog eventually had to
censor and then completely block all arguments about visas,
after the conversation “got downright nasty.”

                           New Hires

    Microsoft is hiring 2,000 to 3,000 workers over the next 18
months, offsetting the job cuts. Some of those will certainly be
on H1-B visas, said Ginny Terzano, a spokeswoman for the
Redmond, Washington-based company. She declined to comment on
how many workers laid off are on visas. Laid-off Microsoft
employees aren’t always a good fit for new positions, she said.
    “If you have a laid off General Motors engineer, that
doesn’t qualify them for a job as a software engineer,” Terzano
said. “It’s the same with some of the people laid off at our
company.”
    Microsoft fell 17 cents to $17.74 at 9:39 a.m. New York
time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares tumbled
45 percent last year.
    The slumping economy and rising unemployment may make it
harder for technology companies to persuade the government to
expand the H1-B program, designed to attract workers in areas
such as science and technology. Since the annual number of H1-B
visas issued dropped to 65,000 in 2004 from 195,000 in previous
years, the program has been oversubscribed before each year even
began. In 2008, the government reached the maximum number of
applications just one week after it began accepting them.

                         ‘Best Talent’

    Asked about whether some companies may back off from
lobbying for more H1-B visas, Intel Chief Financial Officer
Stacy Smith said that could happen as hiring drops. Intel, the
world’s largest chipmaker, is closing five older plants by year-
end, affecting as many as 6,000 jobs.
    “Our strategy has always been to hire the best talent we
can hire anywhere in the world,” Smith said in an interview
this month. “It’s the fuel that moves our industry forward.”
    Companies like Microsoft, which sent Gates to persuade
Congress to ease visa restrictions in March, could be forced to
curb those efforts, said Microsoft Vice President Dan’l Lewin.
    “People probably will be a lot more cautious about how
public they are, but it’s not going to go away as an issue,” he
said. “You need the people.”

                         Stimulus Bill

    Opponents of the program are using the economy and job cuts
as a way to up the volume of the debate. The Senate added an
amendment co-authored by Grassley to the economic stimulus bill
signed this week that restricts the hiring of H1-B visa holders
at more than 300 banks receiving government bailout funds.
    Even Zoe Lofgren, a congresswoman representing San Jose,
California, said in an interview that U.S. companies slashing
jobs should keep Americans where possible. She introduced
legislation in 2008 to make it easier for foreign students
studying for advanced degrees to stay in the country.
    While workers on H1-B visas aren’t included in a law that
protects green-card holders from employment discrimination,
Grassley’s demand that Microsoft fire foreigners first may still
violate civil rights laws, said Howard Chang, a professor at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School.

                     Transportation Costs

    Foreigners face severe difficulties when they are fired
because their visas are tied to their employer, said Paul
Soreff, a Seattle lawyer and former chairman of the Washington
Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. While
employers must pay for a visa holder’s ticket home, transporting
other family members and their possessions falls on the worker.
    Still, Grassley has supporters among groups that lobby for
technology workers, such as the Programmers Guild and the
Alliance for IBM. IBM has cut about 4,000 jobs, based on
separation agreements dated last month. IBM spokesman Ian Colley
didn’t return a call seeking comment.
    “Nobody wants to be cold-hearted -- they’re workers just
like us,” said Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the IBM
group, which is seeking union recognition. “But IBM is making
long-term employees walk the plank. The H1-B people should be
cut first.”

For Related News and Information:
Stories on technology firings: TNI TEC JOBCUTS BN <GO>
Microsoft’s employees: MSFT <Equity> FA 10 <GO>
Top technology stories: TTOP <GO>
Stories on immigration: NI IMMIGRATE <GO>
Microsoft’s sales: MSFT <Equity> PGEO CHART <GO>

--With reporting by Nicholas Johnston in Washington. Editors:
Jonathan Thaw, Nick Turner

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dina Bass in Seattle at +1-206-521-5981 or
dbass2 () bloomberg net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jonathan Thaw at +1-415-617-7168 or jthaw () bloomberg net




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