Clarence Page: ‘A Lot’ of Companies Force Workers To Train Foreign Replacements

Columnist Clarence Page reacted to Disney forcing workers to train their foreign replacements by saying “this has been happening with a lot of compan[ies]” on Friday’s “McLaughlin Group.”

Page stated, “this has been happening with a lot of compan[ies]. I can take you to Ohio and talk to Americans who have been replaced by overseas workers, and — who they were asked to train before leaving.”

Page added that while he favors the H-1B visas Disney used, “there is an issue here about…this being used to bring cheap, overseas, skilled labor in to replace Americans. That wasn’t the intent of the law.”

Mort Zuckerman argued that foreign workers with graduate degrees have “a great positive benefit” of creating five jobs for every one worker brought in. He later added, that the expansion of L-1B visas “is bound, in effect, to contain wage increases or salary increases,” “but the other side of the coin, as I say, is it will also enable us to expand a lot of the industries that we want to expand, particularly those that require people with a lot of education. And so we have a shortage of these people. This is the fastest growing part of the economy. This is where we have to be competitive around the world. So there is some benefit to it. It should be, shall we say, controlled a little bit more.”

Eleanor Clift said, “I’d rather see the American corporations put some money into training Americans to take those jobs, but in the interim, I think we should welcome people from around the world. But these visas are being abused, and that’s what’s happened at Disney World. They’re bringing in people… not with great skills who are replacing people who can competently do those jobs. And so, I welcome the investigation.” Although, she later added, “Well, we have the great universities in this country, and we educate people from around the world, and then they go — they are forced to go back to their countries and they take those skills with them.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett