Pfizer Worries Spur Probe Into Use of Immigrant Workers

(MoneyWatch)  After noting a trend at Pfizer's Groton and New London, Conn., R&D campuses, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said he will call for a Congressional probe into whether American companies are abusing the H-1B visa process to bring foreign workers to the U.S. in an attempt to displace locally contracted workers.

Courtney wants the Government Accountability Office -- the non-partisan agency that investigates on behalf of Congress -- to study whether companies such as Pfizer are "outsourcing" American tech jobs to immigrants who are brought to the U.S. on visas, according to The Day of New London:

Sources have told The Day that H-1B visas have been used locally over the past three years to transform a largely American IT force at Pfizer's Groton and New London campuses into a place more and more composed of foreign workers. The H-1B workers, the sources said, are often supplied by Indian companies such as Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services rather than Pfizer itself, which said Friday that it has only 60 H-1B workers companywide.

In the past few months, according to sources, Pfizer has been ratcheting up the number of foreign workers locally. According to several sources, the effort is part of a plan to outsource much of the company's local information technology work from American contractors to outside contracting firms that hire employees largely from India.

"They're taking jobs from people who live and work here," said one source, who asked not to be identified for fear of being fired. "It's all about the money. The Pfizer family is going out the window."

The probe is about H-1B's generally, not specific to Pfizer. Pfizer nonetheless telegraphed its belief in outsourcing as part of its $2 billion cost reduction plan during its Q3 2008 conference call:

We now expect to achieve a total adjustment cost reduction of at least $2 billion versus our pervious expectation of at least $1.5 billion to $2 billion on a constant currency basis for 2008 compared with 2006. Our cost reduction initiatives continue to span essentially all divisions, functions, markets and sites across Pfizer, broad categories of activity, including manufacturing and research side exits, outsourcing, and targeted workforce reductions. We reduced our global network of manufacturing plants from 78 four years ago to 51 currently. By the end of 2009, we expect to further reduce this global network to 43.

... In addition, we have a wide array of outsourcing opportunities in various stages of implementation. Manufacturing, logistics, finance, facilities, legal and IT are among the functions contributing to the financial and operational benefits of the strategy.

That cost-cutting strategy has led to 14,000 job cuts at the company, and more are expected in January, as BNET readers learned late last week.

Courtney told The Day that he considered asking for a probe of Pfizer specifically but decided not to. Still, Courtney and U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., wrote a letter to Pfizer asking the company to reconsider laying off its longtime contractor work force.