[dreadgeek]

I learned about this dynamic during the 90's when I got into the computer industry. By 1996 or 1997, things in Silicon Valley were so tilted in favor of labor that we were getting paid *mad* money. Folks were getting jobs as system admins who were barely qualified to do technical support. We had our pick of jobs. I turned down two jobs that paid pretty decent--one was at a law firm I had consulted at in between jobs. They offered me a full-time position as their IT director and told me what they were willing to pay. I *literally* laughed at them and told them that there was no way I would take that responsibility on for anything less than 75K and only that because I had only worked in the field 4 years at that point. I walked out of that office, went a few blocks down the street to a start-up did one interview and had a job offer on my cell phone before I had got back home. The other job was at a large manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. They were ready to pay my moving costs, increase my pay to within spitting distance of six figures but I turned it down because I hate L.A. I had my choice of jobs, what did I need Qualcomm for? I didn't because it was 1998.

Then the bubble burst. That happened right after I moved to Portland. When I moved up here, the start-up moved me up here, was paying me a very, very handsome salary AND had given me 5,000 shares pre-IPO stock. We were going to be TiVo before TiVo was released. Then we didn't get our last round of funding. I went from making 70K in 2000 to 13K in 2001. I ended up working in a call center in 2003 making money I hadn't made since before I got into high tech. Had my skill set gone out of fashion? No. I kept my Linux skills as sharp as ever so I would be ready to plug-and-play into any job that came along. It was simply that, in Oregon, my skills weren't worth that much until 2005 when I got the job I hold now.

I bring this up not to boast but to simply illustrate the difference between a labor market that favors employers (where wages are depressed and employees are treated like crap) and a labor market that favors employees (where wages rise, or at least hold steady, and employees are treated as having some value). I do not blame undocumented immigrants for depressing wages any more than I blame people in India for creating a slight downward pressure on wages in my industry (or in the industry--biomedical research--that I'm moving into). I blame *employers*.

So what I'm saying is that if we make it unprofitable for employers to do two things, which I'll detail in a minute, then employees will do better.

1) I think that US tax law should be changed in the following way. If you want to be considered an American corporation, then at least 75% of your work force MUST be in the United States with those jobs held by US nationals. Your headquarters MUST be in the United States as well. You are free to move your headquarters off-shore, you are free to hire mostly non-US citizens abroad. However, if you do so you are now a *foreign* corporation. You will be taxed as a *foreign* corporation and your products are now *imports* and will be levied as such. That way, the government isn't telling anyone how to run their corporation. There's just clear consequences for moving your operations offshore--one of which is that you are no longer an American corporation.

2) The aforementioned rules re: hiring undocumented workers. What I would like to see are fines that draconian. I mean you hire a *single* undocumented worker you will lose your profits for the year. Each incident after the first costs you another year's profits. Make it *hurt*. Put fear into the hearts of employers. They won't hire undocumented workers.

Both will have a positive, upward force on wages.

Cheers
Aj