Petition to stop outsourcing of IT work and to stop the H1-B program

Abstract

Petition by members of the audience at a talk by Joseph Mack on "Outsourcing" at Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC, 12 Jul 2004, at a meeting of the North Carolina Systems Administrators.

To 

Congressman David Price
2162 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC, 20515

From 

Joseph Mack
5112 Longwood Dr
Durham, NC, 27713-8010
(919)-541-0007
12 Jul 2004

Table of Contents

1. Petition
2. Signatures

1. Petition

We the undersigned ask you to stop the loss of jobs for IT workers in USA. Possible measures could include

  • stopping the H1-B program
  • requiring government contracts to use residents of USA

We note that 60% of US corporations did not pay taxes in the boom years of the late 1990s. We would like them to take a bigger share of the tax burden. The H1-B program and offshoring of IT jobs started in boom times (1990s) when US companies were making record profits.

We note that Corporations with headquarters offshore (eg Bermuda) are allowed to bid for government contracts as US corporations.

People have to plan careers starting in High School and need to know that a chosen career will still exist in 20yrs when they will have their families and homes as top priorities. IT workers invest many years of training in technical matters at great expense to themselves and the parents who put them through school. It is not reasonable to change the workforce, to allow companies that were making record profits, to make even more profits, leaving the worker who has prepared for such a long time without any recourse.

We note that other jobs have been sent to cheaper workers previously, many of them in or from other countries, eg farm workers, autoworkers, steelworkers, textile manufacturing, routine office work. We expect that businesses will want to do more of this till there is no work for any Americans unless they own companies overseas. We do not think this should have happened in the past and it should not continue in the future. We would like America to protect its workers at home, just as America accepts that its trading partners, China, Japan and Europe protects their citizens.

We would like you to remind businesses that

  • America is for Americans
  • the point of American business is to give Americans jobs
  • businesses are partners with American workers in building America

2. Signatures

Table 1. Signatories

name............................... address............................

education,yrs

(post High School)

degrees, certificates job_title,experience(yrs)