Words, Just Words
As far back as 1998 Norman Matloff explained that the IT industry's claims of a worker shortage was motivated by a desire to fill positions with recent college graduates and visa workers. These are the workers who are most inclined to work the longest hours for significantly less pay.
Harris Miller called Matloff's explanation "nutty." At that time Miller referred to increasing visa caps as a "stopgap measure." He went on to say that the industry's long-term goal was "to lure and train more Americans, especially minorities, women, and other underrepresented groups."
Sounds great. But minorities, women and other underrepresented groups: beware. Eight years later we've seen no indication of implementing those lofty patriotic and egalitarian goals on the part of the IT industry. Quite the contrary. What we have seen is an increase in offshoring and a major shift in philosophy. Offshoring is no longer being marketed as a temporary fix. The practice has morphed from a "stopgap" into something that is "necessary in order to compete in a global economy" in a world that is becoming a "digital planet." Furthermore, the industry has lobbied hard for yet another bit of corporate welfare - government funding for any such training.
Shuffling and Disruption - Another Money Saver
The ease with which IT work can be offshored may be attributed to its portability. There's also a less well-documented domestic downside as a friend pointed out to me this week. I'll outline two scenarios that have been related to me without mentioning companies or the names of individuals. In each case the IT worker has children and longterm ties to the community.
After 10 or 15 years of advancement within a Fortune 500 company, the first worker's job was outsourced to another company while the location and job function remained the same for a year or two. The position was then eliminated, and she was given the option to move to another (far away) state or take a local position within the company that amounted to call desk work. She chose the local position which lacked challenge and in which she was miserable. She ended up working elsewhere at a little more than half of what she had made previously.
The second case involves an excellent programmer and project manager. Her work was related to a government contract and offshoring was not an option. The group was not particularly large, I would guess 15-20 workers, and at first it was announced that part of the project was being moved to another city roughly 60 miles away. They were explicitly told that their jobs were not being eliminated. One or two of the group did choose to work in the other town, while the remaining workers sought employment elsewhere. They were replaced by inexperienced and lower paid programmers in the new city. The advantage was that the newly hired replacement programmers were already trained in a new generation of the programming language used in the project. In the end the entire project was moved to the other town. This way the employer was able to avoid training costs and pay lower salaries to the new programmers. And contrary to what the workers had been told, the project's presence in the original city disappeared completely.
The IT Industry is Pouring Money Into George Allen's Coffers
As the AFL-CIO letter points out, labor is adamantly against Harris Miller. In a classic labor versus industry conflict, one would expect the IT industry to support Harris Miller. However, that is far from the case.
According to opensecrets.org, so far the top 5 recipients of contributions in the 2006 election cycle from the Computers/Internet industry are
Maria Cantwell (D) 232,151
George Allen (R) 189,532
Hillary Clinton (D) 126,677
Murtha, John P. (D) 88,500
Davis, Tom (R) 84,300
Democrat Cantwell broke party lines in voting for CAFTA last year. A large portion of Cantwell's contributions come from Microsoft employees. Although they belong to ITAA, Microsoft does most of its own lobbying.
Upon Harris Miller's announcement of candidacy for Senate, Oracle withdrew immediately from the ITAA. Miller is clueless as to why this is. While Oracle continue to support George Allen, Oracle's PAC contributions for 2006 shows no contributions to Cantwell.
George Allen is the leading recipient of PAC contributions from the Computers/Internet industry having received $86,732 in the current election cycle. Here are the top 10.
1. George Allen (R) 6. Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT)
2. John Ensign (R-NV) 7. Tom Davis (R-VA)
3. Conrad Burns (R-MT) 8. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
4. David Dreier (R-CA) 9. Mike DeWine (R-OH)
5. Rick Santorum (R-PA) 10. Jon L. Kyl (R-AZ)
Growth in Influence of High Tech Lobbying
The growth in high tech lobbying overall has been steadily increasing and linear. However, for certain companies that growth has been exponential. ITAA member company Microsoft went from a single lobbyist in 1995 and by 1997 had 60 lobbyists according to 1998 San Francisco Chronicle article, entitled "Gates Goes to Washington: Microsoft Puts More Cash into Lobbying Efforts." Of peripheral interests, among the lobbyists employed by Microsoft were Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist.
Wedging Against Democrats with Y2K
By the late 90's lobbying on the part of high tech special interests had positioned the industry as a major player going into the 2000 election. Republicans were openly ecstatic with the high tech wedge issues such as limiting Y2K liability and visa caps. Far from a powerless working stiff putting food on the table, Harris Miller was instrumental in increasing the visibility of these partisan wedge issues. Miller supporters who claim that he was just "doing his job" could make similar claims about virtually any individual who has lobbied aggressively in support of Republican causes.
We already looked at the visa caps conflict going into the 2000 election. In May 1999, the Washington Post published an article, "Battle Lines on Y2K Liability Catch Gore in Cross-Fire." Their previously colorful relationshiop notwithstanding, Tom Davis and Harris Miller were on the same side of this issue, and they are both quoted in this particular article. At the time Davis was also chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.
On the table was legislation designed to limit the liability to high tech corporations for damages resulting from Y2K failures. Tom Davis was a sponsor of the bill.
From Davis: "Gore is scared to death."
"You have to choose between friends. . . . This one wedges them."
According to Gore spokesman Chris Lehane, Republicans were "trying to create a wedge issue with the explicit desire to inflict . . . political damage on the vice president."
From the same article a high-tech lobbyist remains anonymous:
"The vice president's problem is that he is engaged to two women." Noting that the election will take place in 2000, "just when these suits will be clogging the courts," the lobbyist added: "Does he want this industry to be on its knees, or does he want this industry to continue to drive growth?"
On the record Harris Miller held back a bit: "I'm not interested in embarrassing the vice president, but neither am I going to support him when my industry thinks this is an important bill."
Miller continues, "We need some help here and the vice president is the most logical person to offer that help."
The bill passed, but the damage to Gore remained. But in the 2000 election cycle the Computer/Internet industry contributed $1,223,420 to Bush and only $598,984 to Al Gore.
In contrast, for the 2004 cycle the industry contributed $2,747,371 to John Kerry, and $2,056,956 to Bush. As an aside, the total 2004 dollar amount was well more than double that of 2000.
Harris Miller's 11th hour public protests agains John Kerry's immigration policies were too late to have much impact on the contribution levels. Their influence at the polls can only be conjectured.