Joe Green, the FWD.us president who was also Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s college roommate, was asked in a recent Bloomberg TV interview how he felt about big-tech companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and Hewlett-Packard that are slashing American high-tech jobs while pushing for massive increases in guest-worker permits. He suggested that foreign workers are “truly great,” while Americans are “just sort of okay.”
Green stated that jobs in technology, engineering, and design are “extremely high-value, high-productivity jobs, where the difference between someone who is truly great and just sort of okay is really huge.”
After saying that it is important not to think of the economy in a zero-sum way,” Green said that “if those jobs are not able to be hired here,” then they will go to places like Vancouver and England.
FWD.us has poured millions of dollars into getting drastic increases in guest-worker visas that the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of American workers. The group, along with other high-tech interests, is pushing for more guest-workers at a time when, as Breitbart News has extensively reported, “scholars and studies from organizations on the left, right, and center have debunked the notion that there is a shortage of American high-tech workers.”
Green, though, insisted that America had the capacity to absorb more foreign workers and even claimed that a “vast, vast majority of tech engineers that I talked to who are from the United States are very supportive of bringing in people from other countries because they want to work with the very best.”
Try telling that to the Oracle manager who recently sued the company, alleging that “he was fired for complaining when he was told to offer an Indian worker he sought to transfer to California substantially lower pay than white workers in the same position.”
Green said he did not believe that those being laid off were untalented, emphasized the “meritocratic culture” of high-tech companies, and claimed, “We treat people the same, whether they are from the United States or not from the United States.”
But high-tech industries want more workers from abroad, and the Obama administration may grant them that wish. After meeting with various high-tech groups, the Obama administration reportedly may give high-tech companies nearly 800,000 more high-tech visas. The administration already “increased the number of guest-worker permits by possibly 100,000 when it allowed the spouses of high-tech guest-workers who are applying for permanent residency to obtain permits.” That would be on top of work permits and temporary amnesty that Obama will reportedly give to nearly five million illegal immigrants.
That prompted Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to accuse the Obama administration of “actively working against the interests of the American worker.” Polling has found that Americans do not want companies to import cheap foreign labor. A recent national poll by The Polling Company found that 90% of likely voters feel that “U.S.-born workers and legal immigrants already here should get first preference for jobs.” A majority in that poll also wanted fewer legal immigrants at this time.
But Green said that FWD.us, which has pushed for legislation that would give a path to citizenship to all the country’s illegal immigrants and make “it easier for people to come here legally and work,” would continue to push for such a comprehensive amnesty bill in the next Congress and during the 2016 presidential election.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.