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About U.S. Tech Workers
Founded in 2018, U.S. Tech Workers provides inspiration, leadership and resources to displaced tech workers every single day. Our goal is to combat the impacts of outsourcing American jobs. We do this by uncovering relevant facts related to what fuels the offshore pipeline of workers. Then we use this information to influence policy reform. We educate the general public and elected officials about how the continuous flow of workers from abroad impacts American jobs, the economy and national security. As well, we alert the public about the potential for compromised personal data when it is stored or processed abroad, and we promote policies that favor investing in our country and our workforce.
U.S. Tech Workers believes American technology workers come first. USTW brings national, regional and local attention to the negative impacts of job outsourcing. And we provide leadership and resources to fight policies that favor the unrestricted movement of capital, data and workers across international borders. Bottom line, we believe that protecting U.S. technology workers and their jobs leads to a more productive, prosperous and secure America.
In 2020, thanks to committed unionized workers at the Tennessee Valley Authority and spurred on by a television spot developed by USTW, a jobs outsourcing plan that was in motion at the TVA was stopped in its tracks. After learning of the TVA outsourcing plans through the USTW ad, President Trump issued an Executive Order on Aligning Federal Contracting and Hiring Practices with the Interests of American Workers. The EO bans federal agencies from firing U.S. citizens or Green Card holders and replacing them with foreign labor. A long-time advocate and working member of the movement for fair immigration policies that benefit America and Americans said this was the biggest success for the movement he’d seen in 30 years.
At the signing event for the Executive Order, President Trump said, “Today, I am signing an executive order to ensure that the federal government lives by a very simple rule: hire American.”
USTW looks forward to more wins for American workers.
Decline of the U.S. Tech Worker
Perception is everything. If asked for a first impression, an average respondent might think U.S. tech workers today are highly paid, successful and well-employed.
They would be basing that view upon a memory of how things used to be. Memory in the collective consciousness of a Baby Boomer generation is of highly creative efforts that were the impetus for new and unprecedented industries in tech and many other tech-related sectors that provided opportunity for many to benefit in the form of jobs, education and a high standard of living.
Fast forward to the present. What a different situation presents itself for U.S. tech workers as a result of the combination of unfair labor and trade practices, as well as the impact of the H-1B visa program.
Through H-1Bs, companies imported large numbers of foreign workers. They still do, at the price of transforming the job landscape so drastically that today the impossible becomes a shocking fact. Only 29 percent of tech jobs in California’s Silicon Valley go to Americans. That’s even with the high demand for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workers.
Wage suppression and anecdotes of tech workers training the less qualified foreign replacements have now become the norm. Now it’s the highly skilled tech worker who has become vulnerable.
This is what inspires our movement to unite tech workers and pressure the federal government for visa reform.
Please join us in the fight to ensure that companies hire U.S. tech workers first.
