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American Engineers vs. tech management: H-1B battle: Round 1 - US citizens WIN!
38 comments- IT TOPICS:Business Intelligence, Careers, Government & Regulation, Management, Personal Technology, Software
It came right down to the last seconds of the bout, about midnight of the lame-duck session of the 2006 United States of America Congress. Senator Boehner (R-OH) took one last shot, trying to slip an H-1B increase into the India Nuclear deal. American engineers were on the ropes.
The committee was in a closed-door session late Friday night. Engineering careers were about to be knocked out for good. Members of various groups from the left and the right were frantically calling their representatives. Family members of engineers from around the country were calling senators, many for the first time ever. Last Friday night, the major news media didn't even cover this fight but it continued until Saturday morning. There was only a small mention of the India-Nuke bill on the news later that night. But the fight was still going on behind closed doors. Early Saturday C-SPAN displayed only, "India-Nuke Deal passed" for several hours, with no details. It wasn't until the next morning that anyone even knew who won the fight. The next morning engineers in America woke to the good news, "No increase in the H-1B cap!". The first battle was won with a whimper of inaction.
How did US citizens actually get representation in congress? Was it the message, "Enough is enough - No more war against the middle-class" that Americans sent their representatives last election? Was it that Senator Biden (D-DE) wanted the Democrats to take credit for an H-1B increase next session so they can get all those big campaign contributions from tech companies? Maybe time simply ran out and they all wanted to go home. Sadly, absolutely nobody believes that Congress genuinely did not want to hurt American engineers and the middle class any further.
So, what's next? What's Round 2 going to be? Tech companies have a lot of engineering work to develop this year. The CEOs and high-level managers are now meeting to discuss their options, which include:
1) Outsource more
2) Endure next year while lobbying congress for more H-1Bs
3) Engage engineers in America
Option 1: The Outsourcing Risk
If management outsources any more, then they will have to move major operations overseas. Cisco has recently committed over 1 billion dollars and 6,000 jobs to their India operation. Many other companies will follow suit. Executives are trying to avoid moving themselves to countries such as India, but for many it will be inevitable.
The problem with outsourcing is "control". How can you outsource your knowledge base? Remember Eigor the hunchback, when he asked Dr. Frankenstein to give him a new brain to make him smarter? Eigor didn't realize that if his brain was replaced, that he would no longer exist. This is what companies are doing when they outsource their main engineering functions. How can you declare yourself an American company when all your manufacturing is done in China, all your engineering is done in India, and there is a skeleton crew of managers in some office park someplace in America? The fact is that you are an Indian company, because that is where your brains are. That's fine, but how does that support the argument that America needs to outsource to compete? It doesn't. It only supports the argument that corporations have lost their civic pride and sense of responsibility. In other words, outsourcing directly hurts a large amount of American citizens and only helps the very wealthy few who control American companies.
This short-term view of engineering has caused a major disconnect between tech management and their engineering staffs today. While companies concentrate on sales and marketing, their engineering departments are becoming non-existent in this country. Often during down time, engineers will innovate new products or they will create devices and methods which mitigate risks that management never even knew existed. This is called "skunking" a project, which means doing something that wasn't directly asked by management, but needed to be done nonetheless. When engineers are not part of the core team, they will only do what is asked of them. They will not "care" for the company's welfare. This induces various risks including a possible "sudden collapse" of all engineering and product development.
Basically, it is impossible to outsource engineering without the risk of losing control of your business.
Option 2: Lobby Congress for more H-1Bs
A major lobbying effort is being mobilized as you read this. K Street is currently full of tech company lobbyists who are transferring their funds from Republicans to Democrats. There will be a major battle next year between American engineering organizations and tech companies over the H-1B cap. There will be a huge push to dramatically increase the cap. But now engineers are getting organized through organizations such as the Programmers Guild, the CWA and others. In addition, Americans are fed up with their representatives working for corporate interests and against the interests of the U.S. citizen ("The War on the Middle Class"). With major news outlets such as CNN with Lou Dobbs and others bringing this issue to light, representatives cannot simply slip an H-1B increase into another unrelated bill when nobody is looking. Everyone in the business knows that there really isn't a shortage of American engineers, just a shortage of willingness by corporations to pay them a fair wage. Everyone in America will be watching congress' behavior next year. Only CEOs and their wealthy board members want an increase to the H-1B cap and Congress should not be working for them.
It will be tough for congress to get an increase without suffering the wrath of the voters.
Option 3: Engage engineers in America
There is a huge pool of engineers in this country. There are displaced engineers who left the profession completely or have been underemployed. There are college graduates who are ready, willing and able, but require some time and training. But mostly, there are engineers seeking a better relationship with management.
There are engineers who long for a change in the way they are treated. They yearn to be part of the team in a broader sense. They simply want control of their project and the respect they deserve. If companies went back to competing with "each other" for American engineers, then they would start offering these things to them, instead of finding ways to avoid confronting them. If one major tech company decided to use that approach, every engineer in the country will want to work there, regardless of pay. In addition, when engineers feel appreciated and in control of their project, they work at a very high level. When an engineer feels that he or she is just a small cog in a big machine, personal productivity slows to a crawl. Today, you'll find engineers working like robots on only small tasks, when they are capable of much more. This is because management, for the last several years, has decided to control projects by assigning small tasks to individual engineers. When in reality, managers need to only manage the engineers, and let the engineers manage the project.
There are few unions for engineers who can deal with tech companies on the behalf of most engineers. But unionizing is not even necessary if corporations returned to valuing their engineers as the innovators and braintrusts of the company. Everyone knows how to hire an engineer when you need one, just offer them more. It could be more money, more benefits, or more anything really. But what engineers truly want is more loyalty and most of all, more control. And the latter, as it happens, is the one thing that management does not want to give up most. But if they did, they would find a surge of productivity from their engineering teams. They will most likely find that they do not even need any more engineers once they've engaged their own engineers a little bit more.
In any case, one way or the other, sooner or later, management will need to ask their engineers once again, "Can you make this for me?".
The difference is, next year, the engineers will reply, "What are you going to do for me?"
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