The Programmers Guild is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 non-profit corporation that advocates against corporate outsourcing

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...

, the H1-B visa program and related topics. The Guild was founded in 1998 by John Miano, a New Jersey programmer. The current president is Kim Berry, a Sacramento

Sacramento

Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...

 based activist on outsourcing and family court issues. As of August 1999, the Programmers Guild had 400 members. The Programmers Guild is incorporated as a 501(c)4 non-profit corporation in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

.

Mission

The stated mission of the Programmers Guild is to advance the interests of technical and professional workers in information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 (IT) fields and to improve the work and the workplaces of technical professionals across the spectrum of IT fields and disciplines.

The organization stands in opposition to:

• Replacement by H-1B and L-1 visa workers
• Outsourcing jobs to offshore contractors
• Shifting jobs to overseas facilities
• False claims of a labor shortage in IT professions
• Conversion of pensions to cash balance plans
• Age discrimination
• Job ads drafted with intent to exclude U.S. applicants
• Lack of respect for training, experience, knowledge, and past achievements

Actions

The Programmers Guild claims that the use of guest worker programmers depresses wages in the computer industry . The Programmers Guild circulated the notorious Cohen & Grigsby video in which representatives of the firm explained to employers how "Not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker." This video got picked up by CNN's

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs

Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs is an American journalist, radio host, television host on the Fox Business Network, and author. He anchored CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight until November 2009 when he announced on the air that he would leave the 24-hour cable news television network.He was born in Texas and lived...

 and Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...

 among others. Founder, and now attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

, John Miano researches and writes on the usage of the H-1B visa

H-1B visa

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101. It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations...

 program

• On May 2, 2008 a civil court judge
  Judge
  A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
  
   sided with the Programmers Guild in their complaint against a Pittsburgh computer consulting company and ordered it to pay $45,000 in penalties for discriminating against legal US residents by advertising only for developers on H-1B visas. The case was brought against iGate Mastech for placing an advertisement for thirty computer programmers in 2006 "that expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of US citizens, lawful permanent citizens and other legal US workers" according to the US Department of Justice.

The Guild is a member of the Coalition for the Future American Worker

Coalition for the Future American Worker

The Coalition for the Future American Worker is an umbrella coalition of organizations in America that claim that current immigration policies are harming American workers. It includes professional trade groups and grassroots citizens organizations and has run advertisements in several states,...

.

See also

• Outsourcing
  Outsourcing
  Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
  
  
• Offshoring
  Offshoring
  Offshoring describes the relocation by a company of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Even state governments employ offshoring...
  
  
• Anti-Globalism
• Offshoring IT Services
• Offshore software R&D
  Offshore software R&D
  Offshore Software R&D is provision of software development services by an external supplier positioned in a country that is geographically remote from the client enterprise; a type of offshore outsourcing. In this context, it refers to the offshore development phase of a software...
  
  
• SKIL Bill
  SKIL Bill
  /, also known as the “Securing Knowledge Innovation and Leadership Act of 2006”, or the “SKIL Bill” from its acronym and rhyme, is targeted at increasing legal immigration of scientific, technology, engineering, and mathematics workers into the United States by increasing the quotas on the H-1B...
  
  
• Computer programming
  Computer programming
  Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
  
  
• Decline and Fall of the American Programmer
  Decline and Fall of the American Programmer
  Decline and Fall of the American Programmer is a book written by Edward Yourdon in 1992. It was addressed to American programmers and software organizations of the 1990s, warning that they were about to be driven out of business by programmers in other countries who could produce software more...
  
  

External links

• Official site: http://www.programmersguild.org
• USCIS site: http://www.uscis.gov