Once again cries are arising from the information technology industry that it is facing a huge and desperate shortage of qualified programmers and software engineers ("Long wait for scarce visas," May 2).
To remain competitive - and to maintain America's lead in IT - industry leaders insist they must bring in hundreds of thousands of guest workers from abroad. That's the hype.
The reality is as it has always been: There are plenty of Americans willing and able to fill virtually every open IT position. It's just that American employers don't want to hire them.
Employers don't seek to hire H-1B workers because they are desperate for programming talent they can't find here.
What they really want, to quote Professor Norman Matloff of the University of California, Davis, is "cheap, compliant labor."
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant work visa and is, in fact, a form of indentured servitude.
The H-1B worker is bound to his sponsoring employer much as an indentured servant in colonial times was bound to his master.
An H-1B worker who is fired must find another sponsoring employer or leave the country within 10 days.
Most H-1B workers also hope to qualify for a green card - a process that can take up to six years. But this too requires employer sponsorship, and if an H-1B worker changes employers, he or she must begin the entire process anew.
Needless to say, an H-1B worker has essentially zero bargaining power with a sponsoring employer. (He certainly doesn't want to make his boss angry by telling him to go shove it when the boss insists he work 14 hours a day for eight hours' pay, now, does he?)
And if the H-1B worker has no bargaining power, neither does anyone competing with that worker for the same job.
Phil Manger, Cockeysville
The writer is an independent software developer.
An Artscape debut for Zappa statue?
Kudos to Baltimore's Public Art Commission for voting to accept the statue so graciously offered by the group of Lithuanian Frank Zappa fans ("From Lithuania, with love of Zappa," May 8).
I hope the commission will look at placing the statue outside the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall as Mr. Zappa was an accomplished classical composer as well as rock musician and social satirist.
Perhaps an unveiling of the sculpture at Artscape with a performance of one of Mr. Zappa's pieces by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and a headline performance by Zappa Plays Zappa, Dweezil Zappa's tribute band to his late father.
That would be a fitting tribute to one of Baltimore's own.
Fred Furney, Baltimore
Let Zappa's visage welcome visitors
I hope Mayor Sheila Dixon wholeheartedly accepts the offer of the Lithuanian sculptor to give the city of Baltimore a copy of his statue of Frank Zappa ("From Lithuania, with love of Zappa," May 8).
I think it should replace that giant ugly sculpture that was inflicted upon us in front of Penn Station. I think it would be most fitting for out-of-town visitors and natives leaving home to gaze upon Mr. Zappa before or after they board a train in our city.
Joanne Stato, Baltimore
