Lawmaker asks Microsoft about keeping American workers
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has sent a literal meaning to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer expressing touch over how the set may go about its layoffs.
“I am concerned that Microsoft will be retaining foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American employees when it implements its layoff plan,” Grassley said in the letter, placed to his Web site on Friday.
The company announced plans Thursday to cut a net 2,000 to 3,000 jobs athwart the next 18 months, its first companywide layoff. An initial signal of 1,400 job cuts were effective Friday.
The senator asked Ballmer for details on the jobs to be eliminated; how many are held by H-1B or other work-visa-program employees; how many are held by Americans and, of those positions, how many similar positions held by foreign visitor workers are being retained; and in what state many persons H-1B or other work-visa-program workers Microsoft will withhold when the layoff is complete.
“My point is that during a layoff, companies should not have existence retaining H-1B or other work-visa-program employees upper qualified American workers,” Grassley wrote.
“Our immigration policy is not intended to harm the American work force. … Microsoft has a right obligation to protect these American workers by putting them primitive during these difficult economic times.”
In response to a query about Grassley’s letter, Microsoft said the at the head layoffs include foreigners working here on visas.
“The initial reductions we announced move employees in a number of business units, and a significant number of the affected employees are foreign citizens operating in this country on a visa,” said assembly spokesman Lou Gellos. ” … For many of the employees here on a visa, substance laid off means that they obtain to withdrawal the country steady very short notice, in many cases uprooting families and children.”
Cletus Weber, co-founder and partner with Mercer Island-based immigration law firm Peng & Weber, said determining layoffs by nationality or immigration status could violate anti-discrimination laws.
“I be sure of no immigration formula that would require Microsoft or any one other U.S. company to lay off its lawfully employed foreign workers first,” Weber wrote in an e-mail.
“To the perverse, I believe arbitrarily laying off lawfully employed foreign workers first would subject these companies to in posse legal liability under federal anti-discrimination laws.”
Grassley marked out that Microsoft has lobbied Congress because of any expansion of the H-1B program.
Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2008665300_microsoft24.html?syndication=rss
