Bright Future Jobs

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Huffington Post:
"Going Political-Not Postal"

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CNN Interview with Donna Conroy, Director
Cook County Urges H1-B Reform

One of the largest county governments in the nation voted on Tuesday to open the H-1B visa-hiring program to US citizens and legal residents – in opposition to 13 governors who earlier this week urged Congress to expand the program, without ever requiring employers to seek local talent for top-dollar, white-collar jobs. more...

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NYT: "Court Orders Three H1-B Sites Disabled," Dec. 29, 2009 The routine intimidation of Indian tech workers has now been directed at American tech workers who wouldn't snitch on an Indian tech worker, threatening all Americans' free speech on the Internet.

New Jersey and Free Speech: "The action has labor rights activists, free speech activists, and even some beneficiaries of the H1-B visa program united in voicing opposition to the court decision," according to an editorial in the Oakland Journal, a local New Jersey paper.

Businessweek: "Jobs and Protectionism in the Stimulus Package," February 16, 2009 Critics of the H-1B program hailed the inclusion of the amendment as a victory. "The demand to reform corporate recruiting policies that ignore highly skilled local talent now moves center stage," says Donna Conroy, director of Brightfuturejobs.com, a lobbying group for visa reform.

Businessweek: "H-1b Visa Season is Here", March 31, 2009: On Mar. 31, Bright Future Jobs, a U.S. tech worker lobbying group, posted on its Web site 13 advertisements for jobs in which the employer designated a preference for H-1B visa workers or targeted them specifically for the positions, according to the Web site.

Businessweek: "H-1B Visa Law: Trying Again", April 24.2009: U.S. tech worker advocates praised these and other provisions in the bill. "We're thrilled that Senators Durbin and Grassley are requiring employers to seek local talent first," says Donna Conroy, executive director of Bright Future Jobs, a lobbying group for U.S. tech workers. "They recognize that American IT professionals have the talent, knowhow, and experience to push America's economic recovery into high gear."

Businessweek: "An Academic's Labor Helps Fight H-1B Visas," June 28, 2009
Anti-H-1B activists say they're worried less about academic research and more about shaping policy. "The thing that's missing in Norm Matloff's strategy is fighting for a seat at the table," says Donna Conroy, executive director of Bright Future Jobs, a lobbying group that advocates restricting the H-1B visa program. "We need a political movement that allows us to help craft legislation. All the numbers [Matloff] crunches won't have nearly the impact as American technical professionals standing up for themselves."

CIO MAGAZINE: "H-1b Reform Bill Could Complicate Offshore Outsourcing,"
Many rank-and-file IT professionals laud the legislation. "The Durbin bill will put a stop to the outsourcing of American jobs and the discrimination against American IT professionals," says Donna Conroy, a former IT professional and director of Bright Future Jobs, a grassroots lobbying group for American IT workers. "This bill was written for us."

Blacks Break Through in Computer Science

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‘Underrepresented Minority’ label fades; article hints at the secrets of their success
by Theresa Sullivan Barger and Eric Addison
Portions reprinted with permission, NSBE Magazine/Career Engineer.
Copyright © 2008, National Society of Black Engineers

After years of being labeled an “underrepresented minority” in computer science, blacks in the U.S. are on the brink of leaving that category with bachelor’s degrees in hand, according to the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of NSBE Magazine/Career Engineer.

The federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics show that black graduates received 12.4 percent of the baccalaureates in computer and information sciences awarded by U.S. colleges and universities in 2005–06. That’s nearly equal to the percentage of blacks in the U.S. population (12.8 percent). For advocates of minority participation in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), reaching this milestone is cause for celebration.

“In my generation, (working with) computers is something you just know how to do,” says NSBE National Chair Stevenson A. Dunn Jr., 23, a junior majoring in civil engineering at Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn, N.Y. “It becomes fundamental to a child’s development, even in lower income households.”

“When black, college-bound students consider careers, they draw from what they know and see, says Makola Abdullah, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering Sciences, Technology and Agriculture at historically black Florida A&M University. They choose majors in areas they think will help their community, he says, such as law, education, law enforcement, social work, media, psychology and entertainment.” There are hundreds of reasons why people might choose a particular field, or apply for certain jobs on Gumtree and other sites, but African-American college students, over the last 15 years, have increasingly chosen to major in Computer Sciences.

But underneath the skin of blacks' success in computer science, there are signs of deep trouble. Many demographers, including Dr. Salzman, senior faculty Fellow at Rutgers University’s Heldrich Center for Workforce Development and Dr. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies for the institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, predict that near-term growth in information technology will be slow. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says salaries in IT, which are much lower than they were before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, will not grow as quickly as those in medicine, law or business.

But even among black students who know what engineers do, computer science has more appeal to some. The percentage of blacks among computer science backelor's degree-holders has been rising steadily since 1998.

NSBE member Hortense Burt is an engineer and manager of Education Projects at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But after years of saying he was going to major in engineering, her son, a recent high school graduate, decided to major in computer science. “He thinks it’s an easier major,” she says.

Dr. Lowell of Georgetown University puts it another way: “(Computer science) is much more open. The requirements for getting into it are much broader.”

Download the entire article.

Theresa Sullivan Barger is a freelance business writer and a former editor and business writer at The Hartford Courant. Eric Addison is editor of NSBE Magazine/Career Engineer.

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ABOUT NSBE
Founded in 1975, the 31,118-member National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE. org) is one of the largest student-governed organizations based in the U.S. NSBE has more than 300 chapters on college and university campuses, hundreds of NSBE Jr. chapters and more than 80 Alumni Extension chapters and interest groups in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean. The organization’s mission is to “increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.”