Toys ‘R’ Us seems to be taking advantage of a visa program to hire foreigners and replace Americans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Toys ‘R’ Us is taking advantage of the H-1B visa system to bring in foreign workers so they can be trained by the very American employees they will replace.
The company will then use those newly trained staffers to ship the jobs to overseas markets.
The end result is about 70 American workers are losing their jobs, mainly in the company’s accounting department in New Jersey.
The New York Times first reported the development, and wrote: “When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy. Now, though, some companies are bringing in workers on those visas to help move jobs out of the country.”
As the Washington Free Beacon pointed out, the global outsourcing is creating a situation where American citizens employed by Toys ‘R’ Us are losing their jobs to the newly trained foreign replacements.
And as the New York Times found, the toy giant isn’t the only company taking advantage of the visa program in such manner.
“The Toys ‘R’ Us layoffs, and others underway now at the New York Life Insurance Co. and other businesses, go further,” the newspaper wrote. “They are examples of how global outsourcing companies are using temporary visas to bring in foreign workers who do not appear to have exceptional skills … to help ship out jobs, mainly to India.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Rubio wants to expand corporate outsourcing program
As WND has previously reported, scores of big corporations have taken exploited the H1B visa program over the years, using it to replace American workers in their IT departments with cheaper “guest workers” from India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and other Asian and Middle Eastern nations. The list includes Disney, Southern California Edison, Harley Davidson, Deloitte, Cargill, Catalina Marketing and Northeast Utilities, among others.
And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has a bill waiting in the Senate that would triple the number of H1B guest-worker visas handed out to foreign workers every year. Rubio’s so-called I-Squared bill would increase the cap on skilled guest-worker visas from 65,000 per year to around 195,000 and also allow for unlimited green cards to be handed out by universities. The bill would also allow family members of the H1B visa holders to live and work in the U.S.
The Center for Security Policy and others have warned that Rubio’s bill would not only take American tech jobs and give them to foreigners willing to work for less pay, but it would also present a national security risk since most H1B visa holders are not tightly screened for terrorist connections and many of them come from Middle Eastern countries where Islam dominates.
The I-Squared bill has the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Software Alliance and heavyweight execs from Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Google among others.
Rubio made a fundraising stop on June 9 to the home of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, seeking fresh cash for his presidential campaign.
Rubio, along with Jeb Bush, are the most vocal supporters of the guest-worker program in American politics today, along with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, where Cargill replaced 900 U.S. workers last year, is also on board with the program.
WND News Editor Leo Hohmann contributed to this report.
Toys ‘R’ Us ships in foreigners, ousts U.S. workers
Cheryl Chumley
Thu, 01 Oct 2015 14:59:31 GMT