PACE Report to Region 3 Excom

December 1999


Two initiatives are underway involving IEEE-USA that you will be hearing more about later.

  1. H-1B redirection

The IEEE-USA Board of Directors has approved making Immigration Reform a primary legislative priority, with a message of “Green Cards, Not Guest Workers,” and uniting with a coalition of other interested groups to pursue this objective.

Every year 50,000 to 60,000 permanent employment-based visas go unused at the same time that the quotas for H-1B non-immigrant guest workers are oversubscribed before the end of the fiscal year. Indeed, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has announced that it may have issued as many as 20,000 unauthorized H-1B visas for FY-99. A H-1B visa is good for three years, and there is little follow-up to track guest workers with expired visas. The legal limit had been raised last year from the 65,000 per year first authorized in 1990 to 115,000 to FY-99 and FY-00. Several bills to further increase the H-1B quota and to create new classes of workers exempt from the quota were introduced in the first session of the 106th Congress, but did not come up for votes.

The new approach, “Green Cards, Not Guest Workers,” focuses on permanent immigration and family reunification for employment-based immigration. Earlier, the American Association of Engineering Societies had voted to support the IEEE-USA position that there should be no further expansion of H-1B quotas.

The new initiative will include two studies. One, by the Institute for the Study of International Migration, will analyze data on conversion of H-1B visas to green cards for permanent residents. It is expected to show that many H-1Bs have their visas expire before they get green cards, but stay in the U.S. and work illegally anyway. The other study, done jointly with the AARP’s Public Policy Institute, will delve into attitudes toward the employability of older workers among IEEE members and engineering managers. This study will also support the Older Worker Initiative, raising awareness of the resource available in our older workers and the need to fully utilize that resource before resorting to higher levels of temporary worker importation.

  1. Portable Pensions for Scientists and Engineers

Work is progressing in AAES to define an occupational retirement plan that would provide a pension vehicle controlled by the individual scientist or engineer, to be offered through professional societies. The plan would include four elements:

  1. Rollovers to individual IRAs from other plans, such as 401(k) or 403(b).

  2. Small employer plans, covering all employees in firms with 50 or fewer employees.

  3. Large employer plans; all employer plans could include employer contribution-matching and management of 401(k)-type plans, using payroll deduction for employee contributions and permitting a wide array of investment options, controlled by the individual account owner.

  4. Taxable investment program for added contributions by workers, totally controlled by them.

  5. Proposals for managing such a program will be reviewed by the AAES Board of Governors in December. Further actions include getting legal opinions, an IRS review letter, and identification of any legislation needed to permit such a program.

George F. McClure, Region 3 PACE Chair