Greed drives offshore outsourcing

Tod Tollefson

Last spring the television show, The West Wing, came very 
close to portraying reality. In that episode, a trade pact 
negotiated by a presidential aide allowed a US tech company to 
"offshore" 17,000 jobs to India. The Communications Workers of 
America (CWA) was even in the story, fighting the runaway jobs. 
In the episode, the president agonised over the deal. In the real 
world, the Bush administration praises offshoring and fights 
anyone who tries to stop it.

The Times of India has quoted US Trade Representative 
Robert Zoellick saying Washington is against any attempt by state 
governments to legislate a ban on outsourcing. In February of 
this year, N Gregory Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council 
of Economic Advisors, said, "Outsourcing is just a new way of 
doing international trade. And that's a good thing."

Also, according to the Asia Times, more than 100 call-
centre executives were handling Bush's campaign from the Indian 
outsourcing hubs of Noida and Gurgaon, which adjoin the national 
capital, Delhi.

In short, George W Bush doesn't lose any sleep over jobs being 
offshored. But does that mean Indian and other foreign workers 
are the problem? Absolutely not.

"Corporate-led globalisation is about capital reducing its costs 
and increasing its profits by eliminating its responsibilities to 
labour and society", said Anannya Bhattacharjee of Jobs with 
Justice/New Trade Union Initiative of India (NTUI) project.

"Outsourcing of jobs, for example, is about capital moving to 
areas where wages are lower, be it areas of a particular country 
where union density is low or to other countries where wages are 
lower."

So, is offshoring a necessity for US corporations to stay 
competitive in a global economy? No, not really. For example, 
Microsoft has begun offshoring its most advanced jobs — software 
engineers and developers, hardware engineers, technical writers, 
project managers and web developers.

Microsoft now employs nearly 2000 workers in India, double the 
970 it previously acknowledged, as shown in internal company 
documents obtained by WashTech News, which is the voice of the 
Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, part of CWA.

But does Microsoft have any real competition? For those who have 
followed the anti-monopoly lawsuits against Bill Gates' company 
the answer is quite obvious: Microsoft, for all intents and 
purposes, has no competition. The reason Microsoft is offshoring 
high-paying jobs to India and other lower-wage countries is the 
same reason a large section of manufacturing has left the United 
States for Mexico and beyond — greed.

A study by Forrester Research predicts that US companies will 
transfer 3.3 million service jobs overseas by 2015, compared with 
just 102,000 jobs shifted in 2000. The majority of these jobs 
will be people who work with computers.

Bhattacharjee said her organisation is planning a tour of a few 
NTUI representatives in the United States. Both Jobs with Justice 
and NTUI believe that in order to build a movement today to 
challenge rampant global corporate power, "we need to build 
alliances not just among unions, but also with other social 
movements and build a broad base of power among those that are 
facing the same challenges", she said.

Bhattacharjee continued: "In a workshop sponsored by WashTech, 
NTUI, and others at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India last 
January, one core principle identified was that of reciprocity 
between trade unions.

"Workers across the world need opportunities to develop 
meaningful relationships so that their struggles are informed by 
an understanding of each others' challenges. Opposition to 
weakening of labour rights can only come from a strong trade 
union movement."

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People's Weekly World