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Visa program gives firms another way to import workers

New Hampshire Business Review, Apr 01, 2005 by Sanders, Bob

When Celestica Inc. announced it was closoing its Salem plant last month - and laying off 420 workers because it could manufacture more competitively on foreign soil - a curious fact wasn't mentioned. During the last three years, the high-tech manufacturing firm imported 54 foreign employees into New Hampshire, supposedly because it couldn't find such specialized workers here, according to data released by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Indeed, Celestica leads the state in petitioning for such employees under the government's L1 visa program, which allows intracompany transfers for as long as five years with no limits and few labor protections.

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During roughly the same time period - from 2001 to 2003 Celestica's restructuring plan has resulted in the closure or consolidation of 27 plants in the Americas and Europe. By Dec. 31, 2003, the company eliminated 18,190 jobs, according to statistics in its most recent annual report.

Celestica said it needs the foreign employees to "apply technology" because of "the global nature of our workforce," said Pain White, a spokeswoman for the company, which is based in Canada. The Salem office filed the petition for the workers because its human resources director is located here. The workers were sent to work at facilities all over the nation.

"It's not like they are taking someone's job," said White.

But many laid-off high technology workers are suspicious that workers here on such temporary visas are doing just that.

They say the L1 visa program is used to import lower-paid high-tech workers to replace or drive down the wages of their American counterparts. They also charge that the program is secretive, run though CIS under the Department of Homeland Security and is a means to avoiding the more regulated and more open, H1 visa program, which is partly managed by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Altogether, CIS granted 163 New Hampshire companies 506 L1 visa petitions during the last three years, according to a database obtained by New Hampshire Business Review from the CIS though the federal Freedom of Information Act. Some 121 of these visas are still in effect.

The list received by NHBR marks the first time CIS has released any names of companies granted L1 visa petitions, according to activists who have been trying for years to get such data nationwide.

The list is far from complete, because it doesn't include foreign employees who work in New Hampshire but are brought in through the L1 program from companies in other states. It does include workers brought in to the state and farmed out elsewhere.

CIS won't release actual petitions, which would say where the workers were supposed to work, though that could change under the recently passed L1 Visa Reform Act, which goes into

effect in June.

North of the border

While Celestica led the state list of L1 visa petitioners, not all companies importing foreign workers are high-tech firms. Indeed several small local construction firms are on the list, raising the eyebrows of local labor unions.

And the main suppliers of foreign labor under the program are not lower-wage countries like India, but Canada and the British Isles. And half of the employees don't have specialized skills, but are in management, according to the database.

One such management employee is Robert Hollinger, president of Venture Construction of Pembroke, which uses robotic machines developed by GL Inc. in Canada to waterproof bridges throughout the nation. Hollinger moved to New Hampshire five years ago to start up Venture, a subsidiary of GL, and has since brought his wife and four children to live with him in Bow.

The rest of Venture's L1 visas - 10, according to database, though Hollinger puts the number at seven - are for specialized engineers who train locally hired union workers how to use the machines to work on the bridges.

Although the Canadian engineers are entitled to live here for three years - with an option to renew the visa for another two - most of them come to the United States for a few weeks to complete a particular project and then return home, Hollinger said.

Hollinger, however, said he is in the process of applying for his green card and wants to settle in the Granite State.

"We aren't taking anyone's jobs. We are creating jobs," Hollinger said. "All our subcontractors and suppliers are American as well. We pay the same taxes as anybody else."

GL&V is another Canadian firm with a New Hampshire subsidiary, the former Beloit paper company in Bedford, according to Robert Gaulin, vice president of human resources for GL&V. The company also has a facility in Nashua.

The firm is actually buying up plants around the country, and sends its chemical engineers the database says about 30, but Gaulin thinks that the number is a third as much - to train new employees in its process.

"They bring the approach, the culture, the knowledge of the company to do the transitions in a technology that is very specific," Gaulin said.

Is it 'insourcing'?

Visa program gives firms another way to import workers

New Hampshire Business Review, Apr 01, 2005 by Sanders, Bob

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