Valleywag: H1-B

Want to learn how lawyers bounce U.S. workers from H1-B jobs? So do the Feds

Owen Thomas — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:20:00 PDT

Lori Melton is an attorney at the Fragomen Del Rey Bernsen & Loewy law firm, a specialist in "corporate immigration" — that is, obtaining H1-B visas for workers. She's scheduled to share her expertise today on the "Evaluation & Disqualification of U.S. Workers," a $199 seminar led by a liaison to the Dept. of Homeland Security. Think she'll show? On Monday, the U.S. Dept. of Labor announced it has begun auditing all permanent labor certification applications filed by attorneys at Fragomen, the "Corporate Immigration Law Firm of the Year," for improper attorney involvement in the consideration of U.S. worker applicants.

Nice timing. Fragomen keeps its client list close to the vest, but managing partner Austin Fragomen also chairs the American Council on International Personnel, where he leads a Who's-Who-of-High-Tech Board that includes execs from Intel, HP, IBM, Sun and Oracle.

Are Google's H1-B hires 20 percent overpaid?

Owen Thomas — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:20:00 PDT

Google salary figures are hard to come by, but the search giant does have to report proposed wages to the government for its H-1B hires — workers granted visa for supposedly special talents — as well as prevailing wages for those positions. A rudimentary analysis of Google's California H-1B data for the last three years suggests that Google may be paying more than a 20 percent premium over what it reports are prevailing wages. According to Labor Condition Application data, the average annual wage proposed by Google for H1-B hires in 2007 was $96,876, compared to an average prevailing wage of $79,777. Which leads to one of those have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife-type-questions: Is Google actually paying H1-B employees 20 percent more than they're worth, or is the company understating prevailing wage rates for the positions it fills with H-1B hires?

White Google executive fibs to Congress about black employee count

Owen Thomas — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:20:00 PDT

It's no secret Google has painfully few black employees. Why lie about it? Laszlo Bock, Google's exceedingly Caucasian vice president of people operations, assured members of Congress last June that Google, which was lobbying for more H1-B visas for immigrant workers, had plenty of black employees. "We have a very strong internal Black Googler Network," he said. "We actually view it as our obligation to reach out to underrepresented communities in our industry, particularly women in engineering, particularly African-Americans. "How many [of Google's employees] are African-American?" asked Representative Maxine Waters.

"I don't actually have that data at my fingertips," was Bock's reply. "I apologize." Ludicrous. Google runs on numbers. Had that been Bock's answer in a presentation to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, he would have been frog-marched out of the Googleplex by security. Let me venture a guess here: Bock knew the figure, at least approximately, and realized it was embarrassing. Recently, Google itself has provided evidence of this.

Forward to 55:09 in the clip above to check out the size and makeup of the audience at a Google Talk sponsored last month by what Bock characterized as the "very strong" Black Googler Network. Judging by the crowd BGN drew to a talk by Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad, Google's dominant ethnic group is the invisible man.