Washington: The main function of H-1B is to replace good-paying American jobs with hundreds of thousands of lower-paid guest workers from abroad who are often treated as indentured servants, powerful American Senator Bernie Sanders said as he tabled legislation making it expensive to hire foreign guest workers on H-1B. Sanders, the leader of the progressive movement in the country, has filed an amendment to the Laken Riley Act. He argues that this amendment would ensure that it is never cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker at home. “The main function of the H-1B programme is not to hire ‘the best and the brightest’ but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with hundreds of thousands of lower-paid guest workers from abroad who are often treated as indentured servants. The cheaper it is to hire guest workers, the more money the multi-billionaire owners of large corporations make,” Sanders, 83, said on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

Moving his amendment, Sanders proposed to double the major H-1B fee corporations pay before hiring guest workers from abroad.

This provision would generate over USD370 million in revenue each year, which he said would be used to provide nearly 20,000 scholarships every year for American students pursuing advanced degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and other fields vital to the competitiveness of the US.

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Sanders said his amendment requires corporations to substantially increase wages for the jobs they need before they would be allowed to hire H-1B guest workers.

Specifically, this amendment would raise the prevailing wage for the H-1B programme to at least the median local wage. “In other words, if the H-1B programme is truly meant for ‘the best and the brightest’, it should not be used as a tool to undercut the wages of high-skilled American workers. That’s what this amendment will prevent,” he said. This amendment would prohibit corporations from replacing laid-off American workers with H-1B guest workers from overseas, Sanders argued.

Corporations engaged in mass layoffs should not be allowed to replace American workers with guest workers.

“Finally, this amendment would prevent corporations from treating H-1B guest workers as indentured servants. Under current law, H-1B guest workers are often locked into lower-paying jobs and can have their visas taken away from them by their corporate bosses if they complain about dangerous, unfair or illegal working conditions,” he noted.

“That is unacceptable and has got to change. This amendment would make H-1B visas portable and enable guest workers to easily change jobs,” Sanders said.

In his speech on the Senate floor, Sanders slammed Tesla owner Elon Musk and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for supporting H-1B.

“Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of nearly USD 430 billion, and other multi-billionaires in the high-tech industry claim that the H-1B federal guest worker programme is vital to our economy because of the scarcity of highly skilled engineers and other technology workers in the United States. In my view, they are dead wrong,” he alleged.

“According to the Economic Policy Institute between 2022 and 2023, the top 30 companies using the H-1B programme laid off 85,000 American workers while bringing in over 34,000 guest workers from abroad. In 2019 and 2020, 85 per cent of H-1B visas were awarded to entry-level and junior guest workers who are paid between 20 to 40 per cent less than American workers in similar occupations,” he said.

Giving examples, he said in Dallas, H-1B software developers are making USD 44,000 less than American workers doing the same job. In Houston, H-1B accountants are paid nearly USD 40,000 less than American accountants doing the same work. In Santa Barbara, California H-1B workers hired as computer system engineers make just USD 45,000 a year. The median wage for an American computer systems engineer is over USD 110,000 a year.

“Why would a corporation hire an American computer systems engineer at a salary of USD 110,000 a year when it is USD 65,000 cheaper to hire an H-1B worker for that same position? If you want to know why multi-billionaire owners of high-tech companies love the H-1B program so much, that is why. They are using this programme to substantially undercut the wages of American workers,” he said.

Sanders said there are estimates that as many as 33 per cent of all new information technology jobs in America are being filled by guest workers. According to Census Bureau data, there are millions of Americans with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math who are not currently employed in those professions.

Adding insult to injury, half of the top 30 H-1B employers are companies whose major function in life is to outsource jobs – known in the industry as “body shops”.

In other words, the same companies that are involved with supplying American companies with cheap foreign labour at home are the same businesses that provide even cheaper labour to corporations when they move abroad, he asserted.

“They are two sides of the same coin. If there is truly a major shortage of skilled tech workers in this country, as Musk has argued, why did Tesla lay off over 7,500 American workers last year – including many software developers and engineers at its factory in Austin, Texas – while applying to hire thousands of H-1B guest workers?” he asked.

“If these jobs are only going to ‘the best and brightest’, why has Tesla employed H-1B guest workers as associate accountants for as little as USD 58,000, associate mechanical engineers for as little as USD 70,000 a year, and associate material planners for as little as USD 80,000 a year?” Sanders asked.