The black professionals charge that politicians of both parties are scrambling to satisfy high-tech industry demands for more skilled foreigners, while minority Americans are being excluded from well-paying, mid- and high-level technical and scientific jobs.
"There are already far more qualified Americans to fill existing high-tech jobs than we need, many of them African-American and other minorities," the Coalition for Fair Employment in Silicon Valley, a group claiming to represent thousands of minority professionals, said in a recent full-page advertisement in Roll Call, a Washington, D.C., newspaper closely read on Capitol Hill.
The group, made up of black engineers, physicists and others, is lobbying against pending bills that would raise the annual limit on so-called H-1B visas, under which high-tech workers from India, China and elsewhere are streaming into the U.S. Democrats and Republicans have proposed competing bills that would nearly double the current annual limit of 115,000 H-1B visas.
But the coalition contends that the visa program takes jobs from Americans and reduces overall pay levels by allowing employers to hire foreigners willing to work for lower wages. Moreover, it says, high-tech companies and government-funded research labs rarely recruit potential employees at conferences and conventions of black professional organizations, or at historically black colleges.
"It's disturbing to me when I see the universities and corporations manipulating the immigration laws in order to facilitate the importation of low-cost foreign tech workers and not expend the same resources to develop scientific talent in the African-American and Hispanic communities," says Keith Jackson, one of two black physicists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, an arm of the Energy Department in Berkeley, Calif.
The black coalition isn't likely to derail the H-1B legislation altogether. But the group's lobbying -- along with that of other groups, including the National Urban League -- has increased the chances that any boost in visas will come with tougher rules requiring high-tech companies to recruit and train more American minorities.
The Urban League, a civil-rights organization based in New York, called on Congress last week to hold off on expanding the H-1B program until the National Academy of Science completes a study of the employment needs of the high-tech and information-technology sectors.
Minority groups aren't the only ones complaining about H-1B workers. The U.S. chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers says many of its older members can't find work, either. That's led the group to join the Immigration Reform Coalition, a group of American workers who hope to restrict the number of temporary skilled-worker visas issued each year.
Industry officials respond that they are eager to hire Americans, but that the supply of Americans with scientific or technical degrees isn't large enough to fill all the job vacancies and the number of minorities with such skills remains relatively small.
But the coalition points to a number of federal studies which seem to back its claim. Last year, the coalition took its allegations about Silicon Valley to the Labor Department, which intensified a review it had been conducting of high-tech companies' hiring practices. Out of 85 companies the agency has looked at since 1997, it found that 13 discriminated against minorities or women and another 24 lacked minority-recruitment plans required because they are federal contractors.
In one case, Diamond Multi-Media Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., was ordered to pay a total of $213,200 in back pay and other civil remedies for improperly denying low-level technical jobs to five Hispanic applicants, whom the Labor Department concluded were qualified for the positions. Paul Crossley, a spokesman for S3 Inc., a digital media company in Santa Clara, Calif., that bought Diamond last fall, says, "Any problem that existed has been solved as we integrated Diamond into our company's culture, which is greatly diversified and integrated."
Separately, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is also examining labor practices in Silicon Valley. "There's been a lot of discussion about this issue and the concern that there is discrimination and not full usage of minority, female and older workers," says Paul Igasaki, vice chairman of the commission.
Many industry officials dismiss criticism of their hiring practices as unfounded. With 800,000 job vacancies right now, "we can't afford to leave a stone unturned," when recruiting, says Jeff Lande, vice president for the Information Technology Association of America. "Companies are spending tremendous amounts on retraining and outreach to all of these communities -- in inner cities and at historically black colleges," he says.
Others, however, acknowledge that something is amiss. "I don't doubt on the demographics that it probably doesn't look good," says Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc., Intuit Inc. and Oracle Corp.
Still, Black says, "the aggregate of job openings really does exceed the applicants who have high qualifications."
Indeed, the U.S. Bureau for Labor Statistics has projected that over the decade ending in 2008, the country will need nearly 1.7 million additional computer engineers, programmers and analysts. That need is growing even as the number of American college graduates with high-tech degrees is falling, according to the American Electronics Association. The group estimates that 207,056 high-tech degrees were awarded in 1997, down 2% since 1990. Although the number of minorities with degrees in engineering, math and computer science has grown in the past decade, the totals remain relatively small.
That's a major reason why limits on H-1B visas will likely be raised. But the coalition and its allies, including the Congressional Black Caucus, are seeking adjustments to the pending legislation that would boost employment among minorities. "I don't have anything against immigration," says Rep. Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.), chairman of the caucus. "But if there is an immigration policy that has an effect of blocking out or locking out native workers, then I have a problem with it."
The White House is listening. President Clinton's senior economic adviser, Gene Sperling, stresses that administration support for an H-1B increase is conditioned on inclusion of several provisions designed to promote minority high-tech employment.
One of these measures would raise to $3,000, from $500, the per-visa application fee paid by employers that depend heavily on H-1B workers. Half of the money raised would be used for training programs for American workers, with special emphasis on minorities, women and the disabled. Another 30% of the money would fund computer, math and engineering scholarships for low-income students.
"We have always believed the H-1B issue requires a balance between the short-term needs of industry in a tight information-technology labor market and the long-term need to ensure that our first efforts go into giving American workers the first chance at such high-skilled, high-wage jobs," Sperling says.
