Visa Shortage Highlights Low Pay for Postdocs

LIMBO: A postdoc in Deborah Andrew's lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine faces an uncertain future because H-1B visas ran out before she could obtain one. During a three-year stay on a training visa, a Portuguese postdoc in Deborah Andrew's lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine began characterizing titin --a gene that codes for a key muscle protein. She may not get to finish. The reason? Her training visa's extension ran out last month. And her efforts to apply for the five-year H-1B visa have been thwarted. The capped limit on the 65,000 visas for temporary professionals was met May 11--months before the first-come, first-served visa again becomes available at the start of the fiscal year Oct. 1. Congress is in the midst of increasing the availability of the visas. The Senate has already voted to boost them by 30,000 for the rest of this year. The House has a more modest proposal that has not yet come to vote. And President Bill Clinton has threatened to veto the legislation if it fails to protect American workers. Complicating things further are a host of interests that support and oppose a bill that means different things to different people. The visas represent a threat to the U.S.-born information technology worker, opportunity for foreign-born postdocs, and a necessary supply of skilled labor for both university researchers and high-tech companies. Citing a worker shortage, information technology companies have lobbied heavily for more H-1Bs. Pointing to the lower wages of many foreign workers and a "shortage" some say has been characterized by poorly designed studies and suspect assumptions, U.S. computer scientists have lobbied against it. Life scientists, for the most part, haven't entered the fray--but they are affected by its outcome. Critics--especially U.S. computer scientists--have said the visas keep wages down. They call the "need" argument spurious since many large software companies have laid off thousands of programmers. They also note that older programmers have a high unemployment rate (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, 12[9]:1, April 27, 1998). Before the H-1B visa program is expanded, many--including Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), --think it should be fixed. While many of these problems are specific to high-tech industry, their existence hurts universities and nonprofit research institutions who depend on the visas. "It is one of the most loosely controlled visas in our system," Allan Kay, Smith's spokesman, told The Scientist. "There is nothing to prevent firing an American and hiring a foreigner. There is [also] concern that companies use foreign workers to depress wages." Specific problems, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, include: Instead of serving as a means to meet urgent, short-term demand for highly skilled, unique individuals who are not available in the domestic work force, the visas are often used for probationary tryout employment programs for illegal aliens, foreign students, and foreign visitors to determine if they will be sponsored for permanent status. Some employers use alien labor to reduce payroll costs either by paying less than the prevailing wage to their own alien employees or treating these aliens as independent contractors, thereby avoiding related payroll and administrative costs. Other H-1B employers act as "job shops" or high-tech foreign temp agencies whose workers are paid lower than similar U.S. workers. The visas are too easy to get and their terms are rarely monitored or enforced. Employers obtain H-1B workers by simply filing a labor condition application. The Senate legislation raises the cap without addressing any of these concerns, Kay explains. The House bill sponsored by Smith will stipulate that companies attest that they have advertised and recruited for positions in the U.S. Applicants for the visas must promise that they won't lay off U.S. workers to hire foreign nationals. The House legislation also calls for a more controlled application process and would monitor cases if employees suspect the system is being abused. As of press time, no vote for the House legislation had been scheduled. If it does pass, the Senate and House must draft compromise legislation in a conference committee, which must then be voted on by both branches of Congress. - P.S. However, in the life sciences, few Americans seem willing to take the low-paying postdoc positions that generate much of the work at U.S. labs. Of 30 applications for postdoc positions in Andrew's lab, only two of them were U.S. citizens. Of those, one took a higher paying slot here. "If we don't have visas, we don't have people to do the work," the assistant professor of cell biology and anatomy told The Scientist. Richard W. Lariviere, associate vice president of international programs at the University of Texas at Austin, acknowledged academia's dependence on foreign workers during his testimony to the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims in April. He noted that his university has about 500 people working there under H-1B visas. And he'd like to have more. "The current cap on H-1B scholars creates many problems for academia," Lariviere testified. If the cap is too low, which we believe it is, it hinders the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to access some of the best academic talent in the world. This problem is compounded by the fact that if the cap is reached too early in a given year, schools will not be able to obtain timely approvals of the H-1B petitions." This problem is especially pronounced near the end of a fiscal year, Lariviere noted--a situation illustrated by Andrew's postdoc. IN DEMAND: University of Texas at Austin's Richard Lariviere testified that academia needs more H-1B visas to attract talented scientists to U.S. universities. In an interview with The Scientist, Lariviere derided the idea that a wave of H-1B postdocs would drive down wages. "The demand for H-1B visas is so strong that it's unlikely to have that impact." Still, he acknowledges that some underlying issues seem at the heart of the need for foreign post-postdocs in the first place. The major issue is money. He notes that many undergraduates are being offered high salaries upon completion of their degree--making years of graduate work less appealing. Also, he notes that postdoc wages are too low. He has already suggested raising graduate student stipends at UT-Austin. "To take a postdoc for 20 or 30 [thousand dollars a year] doesn't make much sense." However, he thinks market pressure will eventually bump wages upward for postdoc positions across the country. "It's a project that wouldn't even exist without her." --Deborah Andrew At the hearing, John Fraser, acting administrator of the wage and hour division of the U.S. Department of Labor, suggested that flooding the markets with more foreign workers could subvert that market pressure. "It is also important to remember that tight labor markets are good for U.S. workers. A tight labor market causes employers to raise wages, improve working conditions, and provide increased training to enable currently employed workers to keep pace with technology." Wages--for both high-tech workers and life scientists-- are one of the forces driving the H-1B visa issue, agrees Michael S. Teitlebaum, of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York, "Life science wages are among the lowest of all sciences." He called the levels of postdoc stipends "an embarrassment." If universities were serious about attracting U.S. students to graduate school, they would consider raising their stipends. Instead, they are looking outside the country for people willing to work for less money than many undergraduates make upon completion of their degrees. For Andrew's postdoc, the issue of stipend level matters little, compared with the ability the visa would give her to carry out her research. Andrew reports that her postdoc will return under a tourist visa in July following an international conference. Under those stipulations, she can't work for pay and won't receive health insurance from the university. Johns Hopkins officials have told the postdoc that, if she were to work for free she might be denied parking on university grounds. Officials have also been wary about her working gratis in light of liability issues and due to concerns that any work done on campus might violate her immigration status. The dearth of the visas, if not corrected, could have long-term impact on hiring practices at universities, thinks Sandra Galib, foreign services associate at Johns Hopkins. She notes that, in addition to six or so researchers, including Andrew's postdoc, the shortage affects people expecting to work during the next fiscal year. Many people have already petitioned for an Oct. 1 start date. This trend, along with the backlogged H-1B visa demands for researchers now "in limbo," could eat up the 1999 cap amount by December if the numbers aren't increased. This, in turn, is making foreign nationals wary about considering working in the U.S.--including potential faculty from other countries who have been offered jobs at Johns Hopkins, Galib warns. Prepared testimony from the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims www.house.gov/judiciary/6.htm Online petitions opposing H-1B increases psyche.uthct.edu/nes/wwwboard/nesforum.html www2.ultra.net/~asa/H1B_pet.htm www2.ultra.net/~asa Galib also notes that--in academia, at least--foreign postdocs often bring more than they take away. "A lot of postdocs discover things on their own and bring it to the lab." Andrews agrees, and she dismisses the argument that her titin scholar and others jeopardize jobs of U.S.-born colleagues. "It's a project that wouldn't even exist without her."

Visa Shortage Highlights Low Pay for Postdocs

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