AS HEARD ON NH Today WGIR-AM 610: H1B Visas Modern Day Tech Slave Trade and Good Riddance to Adobe Flash

Welcome,

Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jeff Chidester on NH Today. We really got into a topic that has been a soapbox topic for me, and that is H1B Visas, and the outright fraud that has been going on with this program, especially in the Tech sector and I have to assume other sectors as well although I have not reviewed other sectors.  H1B Visas are being used to take jobs from American Technology workers and replace them with wholly unqualified workers who are marketed by basically "third world slave traders." These large "third-world consulting firms" represent their candidates with outrageous resumes and charge an arm and a leg" for almost incompetent workers to tech companies and pay their worker's one-fifth to one-sixth of what an American worker would be paid and then pile them into an apartment 12-15 at a time.  These people are afraid to rock the boat, or they will lose their job and be sent back. It is a modern-day tech equivalent to the slave trade.  We must stop it.  But the US Legislature led by a "good-hearted but quite misinformed" Senator named Mike Lee pushed for H1B Visa renewal this week. Then we talked about the demise of Adobe Flash -- to which I say Good Riddance.  It was horribly insecure software that had outlived its usefulness and purpose. Here we go with Jeff. 

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- CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] This was a bit of a tough one this morning. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Jeff Chidester, of course, on December 7th, Pearl Harbor day. How could I not? My father-in-law was there in the war.  I talk a little bit about it.  I had to stop talking because I couldn't just talk.

we talked a little bit this morning about this whole H1B thing. Man. It really is upsetting to me. What has happened to us? What has happened in the country, frankly? Flash. Adobe Flash, may it rest in peace. Jeff's company relies on Flash for some of the training they've put together. But that is all going down the tubes. Anyways, here we go.

Jeff Chidester: [00:00:45] Seven 38 in the morning. Of course, Jeff Chidester with you, December 7th, as always. We're pleased to be joined by this next gentleman. He joins us at this time, every Monday, you can also catch him on the weekends. We call him Craig Peterson. He calls himself Craig Peterson, as well.

Craig. How are you doing this morning?

Craig Peterson: [00:00:59] It's weird how that all fits together.

Jeff Chidester: [00:01:02] You see how to seamlessly. I just said it without even hiccuping, right? The silliness of Monday.  Craig, we're all kind of euphoric that the Patriots not only won, but they won so big that, we're just, we're letting that euphoria carry us through the day as it just so happens.

Hey, Facebook hires foreign workers. This is an interesting thing. There Is this bill going through the Senate and the house right now from Mike Lee, and it's disappointing about H1B. Please talk a little bit about that. Facebook actually got caught on this, and there are some issues with that.

Craig Peterson: [00:01:35] Oh, there are all kinds of issues. I've been talking about this whole H1B thing for years and years, Here's what's been going on in many of the larger tech firms rather than pay Americans to do jobs. They have been using what has lately been a loophole in the law that allows them to bring in foreign workers. So they've been bringing in workers from all kinds of countries that they can pay a lot less to.

Now they're supposed to pay equal wages to Americans. They are supposed to be advertising in places where Americans will find out about the jobs and apply for those jobs. It's called the H1B visa program.

However, what's just happened now is the Department of Justice sued Facebook on Thursday. They're saying that Facebook has discriminated against US workers. They've been giving preferences to Facebook workers on H1B visas. That means a temporary worker. It's a worker that they couldn't find in the United States. No one in the whole United States has the skills that they needed. So they had to go to a foreign worker. It brought them into the country. In many of these places, these workers live in one apartment with as many as a dozen from some of the reports that I've read. They're already working there at Facebook. They're already underpaid. They've taken jobs that should have been given to an American by law.

Apparently, they're advertising their outreach to try and get Americans to apply for the jobs. Is to put them in a newspaper that nobody reads anymore. These are jobs with an average salary of more than $156,000. Out of some 1100 jobs that Facebook posted between July 2018 and April 2019, 81% did not receive a single applicant. Another 18% received, just one applicant.

You add those numbers up, and that's 99% of the jobs, not a single American applied for a $156,000 job.

Jeff Chidester: [00:03:55] Craig too, if not for you, if you didn't tell us those facts, Facebook and other companies that participate in these kinds of practices, just come back and say, we just can't find qualified American workers, which is just hogwash.

Craig Peterson: [00:04:08] It's totally hogwash because the DOJ noted that earlier in 2018, Facebook advertised 22 openings for this is an art director job. 22 openings, and they did it legitimately, right? They put it up online. They put it where people could find it. Facebook had more than 2,600 Americans apply for those jobs.

Jeff Chidester: [00:04:32] Unbelievable

Craig Peterson: [00:04:32] There's some really nasty stuff going on. I've come up against this before. You might've as well. Jeff, because you're in the tech business. Where I've had problems is with one big company. It is a massive consulting firm. They have all kinds of H1B visa holders. It's like the third most of any company in the country.

We're talking about thousands of these H1B holders within this one single company. We were up against them on a bid, and we lost the bid because they were able to undercut us. When we did more research and talked to some of these completely incompetent people, that they had brought in from overseas who had generated diplomas, showing that they had a Ph.D. yet I know high school kids that knew more about computers than these people did. They were being paid about a sixth, one-sixth of what a normal American would be paid.

The abuse is just going on and on.

Then last week, the US Senate just voted on an extension here, this whole H1B program. Instead of having  Republican senators and Democrat senators saying, we need these jobs for Americans, look at the unemployment rate. They just sat on their hands and let it pass.

Jeff Chidester: [00:05:56] Oh yeah, there was no open debate on it. And of course, that's Mike Lee, the one I was talking about, and I was surprised that Mike Lee allowed this. And once again, the bi-partisan killing of American jobs is just insane. We will certainly have to see how that progresses through, but buyer beware too. If you're hiring these tech companies are hiring these companies that help in that area ask. How many employees are actually H1B employees? How many are Americans? It's just a thing we should be thinking about.

Hey, Flash is going away. I'm dealing with this. I've been dealing with this issue for a while because I do a lot of online training.  A lot of our old courses were built into Flash. Flash, it's dead. Dead at the end of the month. Isn't it.

Craig Peterson: [00:06:34] Thank goodness. I was going to have Justin cue up some trumpets blaring. Flash has been one of the worst things that ever happened for security. Now it was great. Yeah. Because when it first came out or an Adobe product now has been for years, it gave us the ability to have moving graphics, to program stuff like your training courses.

You just mentioned where people could click on things, move through them. It was great, but it was designed by I swear it was 10,000 monkeys on typewriters. Okay.  They managed to develop this little programming language. It has been terrible. It's Java, and it is now completely removed. It has never been on a single iOS device in history in the 10 years that my phones have been out. Because Steve jobs, it's a complicated story, but he saw the security problems. He said, you can't do this. You've gotta be kidding. Plus, he had a little fight going on with Adobe at the time.

So it's gone. It's over with, at the end of the year. Good riddance. Adobe has been pushing updates for your browser for Flash that actually removes it from your systems.

Jeff Chidester: [00:07:51] Yeah. It's interesting as I go through this process too, Craig, there was no easy fix to fix those courses. So some are actually going to be retired.

We'll have to rethink how we present them, but you're right. It was something that we were all warned about long ago.

Last thing I want to talk about,  extortion. Where gains traction and Kmart gets hits, I'm always surprised, Craig.

Once again, you can catch Craig, Saturdays, and Sundays on the station, as well as other stations.

I'm always surprised these big companies just get hammered. We always think it's the little companies, and they should be careful, but these big companies keep getting nailed by this stuff.

Craig Peterson: [00:08:20] Yeah, absolutely.

And I want to, and also, before I get into that real quick, if I could just some honor here, my father-in-law was on a submarine in Pearl Harbor when it was attacked on to state many years ago.  He was just an amazing man, a big-time boy scouter. He did everything with these boys and these kids. He never talked about his experience and could never have breakfast, with eggs and orange juice, because all he ever did, was taste diesel.

There are so many of our veterans, two of my kids, did military service as well. I know you did. Thanks for your service. We're talking today freely because of what these people sacrificed in memory of my father-in-law. I had to bring it up, Gerry.

Jeff Chidester: [00:09:12] Oh, that's very nice. We're going to be talking about, Pearl Harbor during the eight o'clock hour, too. and look it back in remembrance as well.

We actually have to break. Next time we'll catch up on some of those other topics that we want to catch up on as well

Craig Peterson: [00:09:22] Very Good and take care

Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Chidester: [00:09:24] You as well. Thanks a lot, Craig Peterson. Once again, you can check him out, Saturdays and Sundays on these stations and the other stations. Also, all of his podcasts are up on his website to Craig peterson.com. Craigpeterson.com and catch up on all those as well. A great podcast.

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