Canadians; willing to work for peanuts at regional airlines

Tarheelpilot said:
I’m not taking sides in this debate. It will become political very quickly.

I was merely pointing out there are qualified pilots not working at the airlines because of pay/quality of life.
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And I agree with you, the case was made that at least some companies low-ball pay to pilots. But it is all the same thing....pilots, factory workers, and other professionals. It's not political to support your fellow Americans.
 
James331 said:
Well when they are using foreign workers to fly for an American company, just to get around paying Americans a proper wage, that's BS, and congress needs to make sure these airlines can't hand out visas when there are a larger number of qualified pilots in THIS COUNTRY.
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The president is trying to do that, but he gets pushback because people say he just hates brown people and Asians.
 
AKBill said:
Not sure how it is today but back in the 80"s I was thinking of moving to Australia. A friend who was an Australian citizen told me don't even try, they won't give you a visa to work there.
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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing in the mid 80s. I hit the same brick wall. Australia companies could only hire non-citizens when they were not able to hire anyone from Australia. And when they did get to hire someone from somewhere else, they usually already had someone in mind to hire. Oh well.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
And I agree with you, the case was made that at least some companies low-ball pay to pilots. But it is all the same thing....pilots, factory workers, and other professionals. It's not political to support your fellow Americans.
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You may not consider it to be a political topic but we would be violating the TOS so I refrained from engaging the topic.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I do support James' complaint about hiring people from outside.
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I do too, but until the law changes it will continue to occur. And it's nothing new. When I was hired at a regional in the 80s these pilots were already flying for the company.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
No, unless you like the government telling people how to run their businesses. I'm certain you didn't read my earlier replies, otherwise you wouldn't have made the reply that you did. You would then have seen the background behind my comment. I'd rather keep the government out of most private enterprise. I'd prefer not to have the government tell you who you can hire. I'd prefer we buy from American businesses when practical who hire American workers. It gets ugly when government legislates things we should do for ourselves as a society.

I do support James' complaint about hiring people from outside.
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I did read your comment but just didn’t follow your point I guess. I also don’t like government involvement in personal affairs. But there are right functions of government, one of those proper functions is the protection of its people. Economic protection is included.
 
paflyer said:
It's all factual.
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IBTL

How is that you have established your absolutely bat **** crazy assertion about someone else's feelings towards any other people as "factual?"

Sorry if the bat **** crazy part bothers you, but you have your facts and....
 
Ravioli said:
IBTL

How is that you have established your absolutely bat **** crazy assertion about someone else's feelings towards any other people as "factual?"

Sorry if the bat **** crazy part bothers you, but you have your facts and....
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Says the man wearing funny shoes...
 
Cooter said:
I did read your comment but just didn’t follow your point I guess. I also don’t like government involvement in personal affairs. But there are right functions of government, one of those proper functions is the protection of its people. Economic protection is included.
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People could interpret that last sentence to support certain government programs that you might not agree with. Anyway, it's been an interesting discussion and I have nothing further to contribute.
 
Ravioli said:
IBTL

How is that you have established your absolutely bat **** crazy assertion about someone else's feelings towards any other people as "factual?"

Sorry if the bat **** crazy part bothers you, but you have your facts and....
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Drop the needle on CNN any time day or night and tell me something different.
 
James331 said:
Didn't realize 121 pilots were covered under NAFTA.
...
If you need a H1B visa, this is done in April each year.
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H1B visas aren’t NAFTA - NAFTA Visas are TN visas. You can get a Canadian on an H1B visa but it’s no different than from any other part of the world.

And H1B is a HUGE deal to get - it’s not just for “I’m short this month let me get an H1B guy in instead”.

It’s costs about $10k in legal fees for a 25% odds of actually getting the visa. After your application is accepted it goes into a 1 in 4 lottery. But your application has to be complete when you hand it in - so you can’t wait to see if your applicant won the lottery before hiring the lawyer.

And the process takes about 9 months if you time everything perfectly. You can effectively only apply for the visa 1 day per year (first Monday in April). So if you time it wrong it takes 2 years.

I don’t think even the FAA would be able to come up with such a convoluted process as the H1B process.

So you only go through all of this when you’re trying to recruit very special talent - nobody does this to save money.
 
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deonb said:
H1B visas aren’t NAFTA - NAFTA Visas are TN visas. You can get a Canadian on an H1B visa but it’s no different than from any other part of the world.

And H1B is a HUGE deal to get - it’s not just for “I’m short this month let me get an H1B guy in instead”.

It’s costs about $10k in legal fees for a 25% odds of actually getting the visa. After your application is accepted it goes into a 1 in 4 lottery. But your application has to be complete when you hand it in - so you can’t wait to see if your applicant won the lottery before hiring the lawyer.

And the process takes about 9 months if you time everything perfectly. You can effectively only apply for the visa 1 day per year (first Monday in April). So if you time it wrong it takes 2 years.

I don’t think even the FAA would be able to come up with such a convoluted process as the H1B process.

So you only go through all of this when you’re trying to recruit very special talent - nobody does this to save money.
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And everyone is "special", meaning they'll work cheap.
 
paflyer said:
Bad form to change someone's post, dog.
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Yeah. I meant to add FTFY which of course makes it ok. But I did at least put ellipses in where I took words out which makes it somewhat obvious it was snipped.

It was meant as a joke either way. Sorry if you did not see it that way.
 
Ken Ibold said:
I don't think you would be so flippant about the process if you had ever tried to hire someone who needed an H1B. Total PITA. The employer becomes a sponsor of that person and assumes responsibilities beyond the paycheck.
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So if it's that hard and there are more Americans qualified for the position, how little money money to you have to pay the foreign workers to make that worth it?


Still seems like a roach thing to do, unless you're hiring for a position where it's hard to find a American workers, seems kinda obvious that if you're running a shop in the US, you hire US citizens.
 
James331 said:
I never said that, American companies can hire any American to work in America, and unless there is a MAJOR lack of talent for said profession no visa.


Thought I was clear on that.


And I forgot where the numbers were for how many CPLs/ATPs/CFIs, but I'll eat my damn boot if there is a country with more pilots than us.
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I have to compete with Indians, Russians, French, Germans, Chinese, etc in the software industry. And yes, they're brought in as H1B visa holders, mostly direct from an American college. And yes, they often start off being paid less for the same job. Been like this for 30 years.
 
I have two offices in the USA. One in Seattle, the other in Tulsa. We don't have any "imports" on H1Bs or any other type of visa working for us in the USA.

But those here who think there's lots of US talent out there should try and go out and hire to fill a position. The unemployment rate is pretty damn low across much of the country. We have real trouble finding qualified people in Seattle in particular, and the tech industry there has driven all the costs, including housing, into the flight levels. Good luck finding a qualified bookkeeper or office manager in Seattle at any price short of a C-suite salary.

We aren't in the tech industry, but from what I've seen instead of seeking more work visas some Seattle tech companies addressed their problem by opening offices north of the border in Vancouver, B.C. and hire Canadians in their own country.
 
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UngaWunga said:
And yes, they often start off being paid less for the same job. Been like this for 30 years.
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That would be blatently illegal. H1B’s have to be paid at minimum the LARGEST of these 3:

a) $60’000
b) The wage of employees in the hiring company with similar experience and background
c) The prevailing wage of that position among all companies in the region

If you know of a violation, go blow the whistle. The reward is 15% of fines levied and the fine for each H1B violation is $52k.
 
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