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Iowa Senator to Microsoft: Layoff foreigners ahead of Americans
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by TDH | January 26, 2009 at 09:36 am
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Iowa Republican Senator, Charles Grassley, wrote a letter to Microsoft asking that it kindly consider laying off foreign workers ahead of American employees.
Sen. Grassley is a prominent member of the Senate, as the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. His stance is that Microsoft should layoff foreign workers on visas before laying off American citizens. He argues this will help protect the U.S. economy.
Microsoft is highly reliant on foreign workers, especially those categorized by the American government under the H-1B visa program. Microsoft has been calling for the government to expand the program for years now. Microsoft employees thousands of workers under this H-1B classification.
According to Sen. Grassley,
"Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect these American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times,"
Microsoft has responded by suggesting that all of their employees will be treated equally in this time of crisis,
"We care about all our employees, so we are providing services and support to try to help every affected worker, whether they are U.S. workers or foreign nationals working in this country on a visa," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an e-mail statement.
Recently Microsoft announced that it will be cutting 1400 jobs in the short term and up to 5000 over the next 18 months.
For the latest layoff related stories check the Layoff channel
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 16:54 on January 26th, 2009
Damn Straight! Only if the Americans are as competent in the job.,
at 06:13 on January 28th, 2009
Microsoft denies that it's singling out those workers specifically:
Source: internetnews.com
Green Card applications can cost over US$10,000 in legal fees, and take several years, despite what certain romantic comedies would have you believe.
So, while not necessarily singling out all H-1B workers, it's easy to see a scenario in which the company wants to shed its more expensive conditional staff.