Getting wide exposure on YouTube, and providing fodder for Lou Dobbs:
The video shows attorneys for Cohen & Grigsby, one of the largest law firms in Pittsburgh, explaining at a conference on immigration how to obey laws that require Americans be given top priority for jobs while still ensuring foreigners are hired.
“The goal here of course is to meet the requirements, number one, but also do so as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal. And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker,” Lawrence Lebowitz, the firm’s vice president of marketing, told the audience in May.
(“Pa. law firm’s immigration talk hits YouTube; U.S. senator demands investigation”, AP/Arizona Star, Jun. 23; Sister Toldjah; Doug Ross). More: Kim’s Play Place says the lawyers were serving their clients’ legitimate interests and that if they can arrange compliance with the letter of an irrational law there’s no reason for them to show allegiance to its claimed spirit. Further: Gina Passarella, “Immigration Law Seminar Generates Unwanted Publicity for Firm”, Legal Intelligencer, Jun. 25 (& welcome Opinionator readers).
6 Comments
immigration issue aside. They are simply telling the companies how to follow the law to get the best workers at the lowest prices. Seems harsh, but companies are supposed to make a profit..any legal way possible.
The Senators demanding the investigation (read their letter) have completely confused the H-1B program, which they malign, with the PERM system, about which the conference is held. These are two very different and discrete systems. And these are Senators introducing amendments to the CIR!
gunner:
Holding interviews for the purpose of finding some way to disqualify applicants is hardly the “good faith recruitment” that PERM requires. Rejecting applicants without an interview because their “desired salary” listing on a resume is greater than the pay for the job (without offering them a chance to accept or refuse a lower salary) is hardly the “good faith recruitment” the law requires.
Obtaining a visa under PERM requires the employer to attest that they conducted good-faith recruitment efforts without success. This is a specific legal requirement. The techniques discussed in fact violate the law. That is, they are illegal.
gunner, please keep in mind that these companies are currently whining about how they need to expand the H-1B visa program because there are not enough qualified domestic applicants.
David, actually, in the video the law firm did not say that a U.S. applicant should be rejected if their resume lists a “desired salary” higher than the salary offered. The words “desired salary” are a misquote–purposeful or not–by the programmersguild. The law firm stated that an applicant can be considered not interested in the job if they “don’t like” the salary. The actual law is that an applicant can be considered as not interested if he is not willing to accept the salary offered, provided that the salary meets the higher of the prevailing wage in the geographic region for such jobs and the actual salary paid by the company to others in the same job.
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