Abstract
This chapter analyses the impact of lobbying of professional and employers’ associations on high-skilled immigration policies and compares low-centralisation/low-coordination countries, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (USA). The USA has low union density, though it is bit higher in the case of the UK. Nonetheless, the two countries have active professional associations, which can serve a similar role to unions. In the two countries, both unions and employers’ associations have fairly low integration in policy-making. The UK and the USA can be found in the liberal market economies group, but have displayed different coalitions and hence high-skilled immigration policies. The chapter displays the high-skilled immigration positions of labour market actors and show different types of coalition that have occurred in these two countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Statham and Geddes (2006) challenge Freeman’s hypothesis of the pro-migrant lobby—in this case, the employers’ associations, who are expected to be interested in cheap labour. Based on their research, the hypothesis does not apply to the UK. In Britain, ‘business remains surprisingly silent over immigration’ (Statham and Geddes 2006: 256).
- 2.
Again, based on Statham and Geddes, ‘trade unions (1.1 %), among others, are not especially vocal’ (2006: 256). While the government has been mainly restrictionist towards asylum seekers and low-skilled labour migrants, it has been supportive of a more open HSI.
- 3.
Teitelbaum (2014: 236) argues that the estimates on groups opposed to increased immigration lack the specificity of the findings on business lobbying expenditures, since opposition to more immigration was not limited to organised labour and the size of union memberships may be only loosely related to a union’s direct lobbying expenditures on a particular type of legislation.
- 4.
To maximise the economic contribution of HSI, the government wanted to strengthen the HSMP in order to respond to criticism of the old HSMP. The changes in October 2003 reduced the overall points required to qualify; introduced new criteria for applicants under 28 to make it easier for younger, skilled applicants to work in the UK; and took account of graduate partners’ achievements. Nevertheless, from 31 October 2003, the Home Office would be charging a fee of £150 for the consideration of HSMP applications and reviews. The HSMP category was permanently added to immigration regulations.
- 5.
The PCG was founded in 1999 as the representative body for freelance contractors and consultants in the UK. In contrast, Amicus-Unite and Connect have dealt with permanent contracts for IT workers.
- 6.
The IT sector panel was made up of representatives from various organisations, including industry bodies (Intellect, Indian Business Group), training organisations (e-Skills UK), trade unions (Connect, Amicus), employee organisations (PCG), recruitment organisations (Recruitment and Employment Organisation) and government departments (Home Office, Department for Trade and Industry). Its goal was to find a balance in labour immigration policy between the potentially conflicting interests of employers and employees (Millar and Salt 2006: 12–13).
- 7.
The 2006 changes meant that immigrant workers already in the UK under HSMP were required to reapply under the tougher rules. However, the High Court ruled the changes unlawful in April 2008, so HSMP permit holders who had entered the UK before November 2006 were to have their renewal requests assessed under the old rules (Pitcher 2008).
- 8.
A Home Office study indicated that about 30 % of Tier 1 (general category) migrants were working in unskilled employment (UKBA 2010).
- 9.
Nevertheless, the number of talent visas granted has been rather low. For instance, 59 visas were granted in 2012 (Kawalerowicz 2013).
- 10.
This council is an advocacy and policy organisation of about 50 of the world’s leading innovation companies including Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, IBM and Sony (Teitelbaum 2014).
- 11.
Compete America is a coalition of more than 200 corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations concerned about legal, employment-based immigration.
- 12.
In 2008, ITAA merged with the Cyber Security Industry Alliance and the Government Electronics Industry Association, and these merged with the American Electronics Association (AeA) to form a new trade association conglomerate, namely, Tech America (Teitelbaum 2014: 235).
- 13.
The full House Judiciary committee endorsed the act on 1 August 1990 (CQ 1990). Once the Senate had ratified its act, the House passed its own after 15 months, in part because of members’ differences over the approach by the lead sponsor, Bruce Morrison (CQ 1990). After refusing efforts to water down the legislation, the House on 3 October voted 231 to 192 to pass H.R. 4300. The vote followed ‘two days of debate and one major change from the act approved by the House Judiciary Committee’ (CQ 1990: 478).
- 14.
‘Congress imposed on the employers a “user” fee for each guest worker visa issued to them. Of the funds generated, 55 % were allocated to the Department of Labour (DOL) for job training grants for technical skills training programs. The bulk of the remaining money was dedicated to scholarship assistance in IT and other related disciplines’ (CWA 2002).
- 15.
The DPE represents 22 unions with about four million white-collar workers. It has been part of AFL-CIO since 1977. While AFL-CIO’s membership has been declining, DPE’s has increased due to the rise in professionalisation (DPE 2008).
- 16.
Efforts to criticise the H-1B visa led to conflicts with leaders of the parent IEE organisations, who have sometimes imposed restrictions on US advocacy by IEEE-USA as being contrary to the interests of the IEE as a global organisation (Teitelbaum 2014: 115).
- 17.
In April of that year, the act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and then, in May, the legislation passed the Senate by a 78 to 20 vote. The House Judiciary Committee adopted a much different H-1B visa act. A negotiation followed and, in time, a House-Senate compromise was reached (Sen. Abraham, Senate Hearings, 21 October 1999).
- 18.
The Senate passed the increase by a vote of 96 to 1 and the House passed it by voice vote. On 3 October 2000, the Congressmen went home in the afternoon, as it was announced that no vote on the H-1B issue would take place on that day. In the evening, however, a vote did take place, with only 40 of the 435 Congressmen present (Zazona 2008).
- 19.
ACIP is a non-profit trade association founded in 1972 to facilitate the movement of personnel across international borders. It has over 3000 corporate and institutional members.
- 20.
ABLI was a coalition of business associations and companies concerned about legal, employment-based immigration (later renamed Compete America).
- 21.
NAM represents 14,000 members and 350 member associations serving manufacturers and employees in every industrial sector and all 50 states.
- 22.
The Senate passed the act by a vote of 65 to 30 and the House passed it by a vote of 344 to 51.
- 23.
Arlen Specter was a Republican in the Senate from 1980, but switched party affiliation to the Democrats in April 2009.
- 24.
The Senate passed the major immigration legislation (S. 2611) on 25 May 2006, with a vote of 62 to 36.
- 25.
The act was introduced in the Senate on 9 May 2007. It was never voted on, although a series of votes on amendments and cloture took place. The last vote on cloture, on 7 June 2007, failed by 34 to 61. ‘Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes’ (Senate glossary 2015).
- 26.
The Commission on Immigration Reform (CIR) was formed by Congress in 1990 to critically examine US immigration policies. The bipartisan commission was chaired by Congresswoman Barbara Jordan and is often referred to as the ‘Jordan Commission’. Its final 1997 report concluded that ‘our current system must undergo major reform’. It recommended no new guest-worker programmes (Briggs 2007). My thanks to Lindsay Lowell for this comment.
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Cerna, L. (2016). The Lobbying of Associations in the UK and the USA. In: Immigration Policies and the Global Competition for Talent. International Series on Public Policy . Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57156-4_5
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