Cohen And Grigsby video aftermath

Date: Saturday, October 06, 2007 12:49 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1766 -- 10/06/2007 >>>>>

The Cohen&Grigsby video story (sometimes called tubegate) is still simmering.
Apparently Sen. Grassley and Rep. Smith sent letters to the law firm asking
questions about what was said during the videotaped seminar.
Unfortunately Computerworld didn't post the letters.

The article links to the Programmer's Guild youtube video which contains some
choice excerpts from the Cohen&Grigsby seminar. To see the entire video
series go here:

http://lyrelyrepantzandfier.com/

Computerworld allows readers to post comments to the story.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=10&articleId=9041119&intsrc=hm_topic

Hiring video's aftermath: Law firm says words ill-chosen, but advice proper
Patrick Thibodeau October 05, 2007 (Computerworld) The law firm that last
spring inadvertently gave H-1B visa opponents a YouTube sound bite for the
ages said in a lengthy letter to two federal lawmakers that it "regrets
certain ill-chosen language" but did nothing legally or ethically wrong.

Pittsburgh-based Cohen & Grigsby PC sent the letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley
(R-Iowa) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in July, after the two congressmen had
written the law firm with questions about a video posted on YouTube LLC's Web
site featuring clips from a seminar that Cohen & Grigsby held May 15. During
the seminar, attorneys from the firm's immigration law group provided advice
on hiring foreign nationals and obtaining green cards for workers from
overseas.

Grassley's office provided a copy of Cohen & Grigsby's letter to Computerworld
this week, following a request for the document. It also released a letter to
Grassley from Emily Stover DeRocco, assistant secretary for training and
administration at the U.S. Department of Labor, who wrote that the DOL was
reviewing green card applications filed by Cohen & Grigsby for clients "to
verify that U.S. workers who applied but were not selected for advertised
positions were rejected for lawful reasons."

DeRocco's letter was a response to a request made by Grassley and Smith to DOL
Secretary Elaine Chao, in which they asked the agency to review the YouTube
video and investigate the law firm's procedures.

A spokesman for Grassley said this week that the senator's office believes the
Labor Department will "properly review" the green card applications submitted
by Cohen & Grigsby. DOL officials couldn't be reached for comment on the
matter, and the law firm declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

As part of the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) process, which is
one of the steps in obtaining a green card, employers are required to place
help wanted ads, with the intent of either hiring U.S. workers or showing that
no qualified Americans are available for the job that a foreign national holds
or is seeking.

However, the positions advertised for under the PERM process are derided as
"fake jobs" by critics, who contend that the employers aren't seriously
looking for candidates other than the foreign workers they already have in
mind. Immigration law attorneys have argued in many cases that companies are
simply seeking to hire an H-1B worker who may be a multiyear employee but
whose temporary visa has reached its end.

The issue is a volatile one, and it exploded into public view last June.
Cohen & Grigsby taped portions of its hiring practices seminar and posted the
videos on its Web site, evidently for marketing purposes. But when Kim Berry,
president of the Programmers Guild in Summit, N.J., saw the video, he
annotated excerpts of it and posted his version on YouTube.

The most memorable part of the YouTube video is two sentences uttered by
Lawrence Lebowitz, an attorney at Cohen & Grigsby, during an explanation of
the PERM application process to employers. "Our goal is clearly not to find a
qualified and interested U.S. worker," he said in the video. "And that, in a
sense, sounds funny, but it's what we are trying to do here."

In the letter that Grassley and Smith sent to Chao, they claimed that the
video exposed a "blatant disregard for American workers and [a] deliberate
attempt to bring in cheaper foreign workers through the H-1B program."

But Jack Elliott, the law firm's president, wrote in his July 10 letter to the
lawmakers that Cohen & Grigsby officials "reject any suggestion that members
of the firm have engaged in any conduct that is illegal, abusive,
discriminatory against U.S. citizens or unethical."

Elliott added that the comments about recruitment practices made at the
seminar by Lebowitz and other Cohen & Grigsby employees didn't actually relate
to H-1B visas, "because recruitment is not a part of the normal H-1B statutory
or regulatory scheme." He contended that the discussion of H-1B visa issues at
the seminar "comported in all respects with applicable legal requirements."

In the case of green card applicants, Elliott argued that many of the foreign
nationals seeking permanent residency status in the U.S. have been on the job
for several years. And by the time an employer decides to apply for a PERM
certification, he wrote, "the company normally has decided that the foreign
national employee is of critical importance to the company."

According to Elliott, the DOL's advertising requirement compels companies to
place help wanted ads for "positions already occupied by a foreign worker whom
the employer is not seeking to replace." The PERM process wasn't developed by
the DOL "to find jobs for U.S. workers," he continued.
"Rather, it is one step in determining whether a foreign national employee of
a U.S. employer ... should be able to obtain permanent resident status in the
United States."

Grassley and Smith, in their letter to the law firm, said comments made in the
video advise potential employers that they can meet the Labor Department's
requirements by advertising positions "in places where they will not find the
most qualified applicant" -- for instance, in publications with limited
circulations.

In response to that point, Elliott wrote in his letter, "It is common and
legal for employers to choose less expensive options that fully meet DOL
requirements."

"We are well aware that many persons who understand the labor certification
process find it unfair to American applicants who are led to believe that an
advertised job posting represents an open position that an employer wishes to
fill immediately," Elliott added. "However, the appropriate response, we
respectfully suggest, is not to challenge those who attempt to live by the
rules, but to change the rules."

Berry called the advertising requirement a sham and said that even if
qualified workers apply for a job, they know they won't get it.

The mission of the Labor Department is to help job seekers, Berry said. But he
claimed that there's a "wide discrepancy" between the DOL's stated mission and
the agency's "condoning of bringing in qualified Americans to job interviews
for the sole purpose of finding some basis to disqualify them, and to give
those jobs to a citizen of another country."

John Miano, the founder of the Programmers Guild, said the YouTube video will
remain "the theme song of any debate" on this issue. Miano doesn't expect the
video to change anything, but he pointed out that when employers advertise for
workers, they attest that they're acting in good faith. That isn't always the
case, he said.

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