The best labor power to exploit

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Clearly capital is slavering to exploit these lucky workers (below).

But is this because in marxist terms, the rate of their exploitation is
particularly high - and outweighs the cost of their wages?

Or that there is a scarcity of this type of commodity?

Or that this is the only way to avoid a crisis of unprofitability in this
sector?

And why must they travel to the USA, rather than capital travelling to them?

Any comments on how to approach these questions?

Chris Burford

London



U.S. Senate Passes a Visa Bill To Ease High-Tech Job Crunch


By Helen Dewar Washington Post Service

WASHINGTON - The Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday to
increase visas for highly skilled foreign workers in a dramatic
demonstration of the high-technology industry's clout on Capitol Hill.

The 96-to-1 vote, with only Senator Ernest Hollings, Democrat of South
Carolina, dissenting, provided a rare display of bipartisanship in a
Congress where the two parties have deadlocked over some of the most
important items on their election year agendas.

''Whether it's Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle, or my own state of
Michigan, the need for these workers is extraordinarily strong,'' said
Senator Spencer Abraham, Republican of Michigan. Mr. Abraham said studies
indicated that as many as one million positions were unfilled in the
information technology industry, with up to 200,000 new jobs likely to be
created in each of the next 10 years.

The Senate-approved measure would allow the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to issue 195,000 so-called H-1B visas in each of the next three
years for skilled workers from abroad, mainly to satisfy the voracious
appetite of the burgeoning high-tech industry for workers. The visas can be
extended for up to six years.

Under a program that was begun in the 1950s and expanded in the early 1990s
as the demand for high-tech jobs outstripped the supply of the American
work force, 115,000 H-1B visas were issued this year, hitting the legal
ceiling by March. Without passage of new legislation, the cap would drop to
107,500 for the fiscal year that began Sunday.