
July 28, 2005
WashTech News
By Roberta L. Wilson
Another day, another set of corporate slides arrives in the WashTech/CWA Local 37083 office in Seattle. “We don’t go looking for these slides,� said Marcus Courtney, President of WashTech. “But disgruntled employees continue to send evidence of their companies’ offshoring plans to us through anonymous phone calls, faxes, emails and even brown paper envelopes.�
Indeed, in 2001, an employee at Microsoft broke silence and sent WashTech evidence from Brian Valentine’s PowerPoint presentation in which the corporate vice president clearly articulated corporate plans: “Pick something to move offshore today.� Although Microsoft denied that U.S. employees would lose jobs at the time, Microsoft has gone on to make major investments in both call center and software research and development infrastructure in India, China and elsewhere.
Then came the Honeywell International slides in 2004, which also clearly outlined the company’s global development strategy. Those slides showed the plan to move 5,000 aerospace division jobs offshore over the next five years.
“The most recent batch of slides comes,� said Courtney, “from Merck & Company (pharmaceuticals). The Merck slides are, well, murky. The 43 slides are difficult to decipher, but one intent is evident-"to offshore almost all its IT jobs. The anonymous employee who provided these slides noted that while Merck fought U.S. customers’ ability to buy cheaper Canadian drugs, they have been planning to send U.S. jobs offshore. Merck, the second-biggest U.S. drug maker, recently shut off sales to Canadian pharmacies exporting drugs to American patients. The often-cited argument-"that free-trade globalization will benefit U.S. customers-"does not seem to.
Another recent slide faxed to WashTech offices comes from IBM. It shows IBM’s recent offshoring numbers from 2002 to 2005, confirming our August 2003 story about IBM’s plans to accelerate offshoring. Total headcount in India in 2002 was 6,070. In 2005 it grew to 38,196. At the same time, thousands of IBM workers are losing their jobs in the U.S. and U.K.
These batches of slides, along with other evidence of offshoring-"for example, the many e-mails WashTech receives to update our Offshore Tracker-"point to continued and accelerated offshoring of jobs in many job categories. As Courtney says, “Every company seems to have the same strategy: offshore jobs, increase work hours, provide fewer benefits.�
Meanwhile, according to a June 3, 2005, Reuters story, the Indian government, in service to their free marketers, has noted the continued backlash against free-trade globalization (fromWashTech, IBM Alliance and other organizations). They are petitioning the World Trade Organization (WTO) to prevent the U.S. and other countries from taking steps to ban companies from outsourcing jobs. See this link for more.
We wonder if the Indian government and corporate free traders will meet with much opposition, given that both Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. have promoted free-trade globalization to the detriment of their own citizens and residents working in both the manufacturing and the services industries. Although there are bills that have passed in a few state legislatures to curtail offshoring of government jobs, little has been done by either party to address outsource offshoring in the private sector. Nor has there been much movement to protect workers from the effects of these tax-subsidized, government-supported trade policies.
What is clearly missing is a broad debate in the U.S. and elsewhere about free-trade globalization and its pros and
cons. We believe the reason this broad debate has not taken place is that the few potential winners in free-trade globalization want to make sure that the large numbers of losers don’t know what hit them. The losers will be workers everywhere, who will be pitted against one another in a race to the bottom.
In reaction to free-trade problems, many groups are calling for “fair trade.� Fair trade is a useful, now-voluntary approach to help indigenous communities compete in the world market. Fair trade favors labor and the environment by organizing workers in locally owned cooperatives to raise coffee and other crops with sustainable methods. However, fair trade ideas do not address the realities of billions of urban workers, including our own high-tech sector.
What urban workers need is good-paying, environmentally responsible jobs that sustain their families and communities. A powerful and comprehensive UN report titled A Fair Globalization puts job creation and economic security at the center of economic planning. According to the report, outsourcing would not be a problem if there were enough decent jobs. However, a global jobs deficit allows companies to move work wherever labor is cheapest-"and where governments are most desperate, therefore providing the highest subsidies with the lowest environmental and social protections.
The task is to address the jobs deficit with strategies to create enough decent jobs for everyone. You can read more about this report in a paper located at FairJobs.org: http://www.fairjobs.org/fairjobs/reports/ See “Outsource This? American Workers, the Jobs Deficit and Fair Globalization.� Meanwhile, we’re depending on our deep throat contacts in the high-tech sector to keep us reporting on the facts and consequences of free-trade globalization.
See the documents WashTech has obtained: Corporate Secrets Exposed
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Deep Throat Move Over: Disgruntled IT Employees Expose All
“Fair Globalization� May Be the Answer to OffshoringBy Roberta L. Wilson
Another day, another set of corporate slides arrives in the WashTech/CWA Local 37083 office in Seattle. “We don’t go looking for these slides,� said Marcus Courtney, President of WashTech. “But disgruntled employees continue to send evidence of their companies’ offshoring plans to us through anonymous phone calls, faxes, emails and even brown paper envelopes.� Indeed, in 2001, an employee at Microsoft broke silence and sent WashTech evidence from Brian Valentine’s PowerPoint presentation in which the corporate vice president clearly articulated corporate plans: “Pick something to move offshore today.� Although Microsoft denied that U.S. employees would lose jobs at the time, Microsoft has gone on to make major investments in both call center and software research and development infrastructure in India, China and elsewhere.
Then came the Honeywell International slides in 2004, which also clearly outlined the company’s global development strategy. Those slides showed the plan to move 5,000 aerospace division jobs offshore over the next five years.
“The most recent batch of slides comes,� said Courtney, “from Merck & Company (pharmaceuticals). The Merck slides are, well, murky. The 43 slides are difficult to decipher, but one intent is evident-"to offshore almost all its IT jobs. The anonymous employee who provided these slides noted that while Merck fought U.S. customers’ ability to buy cheaper Canadian drugs, they have been planning to send U.S. jobs offshore. Merck, the second-biggest U.S. drug maker, recently shut off sales to Canadian pharmacies exporting drugs to American patients. The often-cited argument-"that free-trade globalization will benefit U.S. customers-"does not seem to.Another recent slide faxed to WashTech offices comes from IBM. It shows IBM’s recent offshoring numbers from 2002 to 2005, confirming our August 2003 story about IBM’s plans to accelerate offshoring. Total headcount in India in 2002 was 6,070. In 2005 it grew to 38,196. At the same time, thousands of IBM workers are losing their jobs in the U.S. and U.K.
These batches of slides, along with other evidence of offshoring-"for example, the many e-mails WashTech receives to update our Offshore Tracker-"point to continued and accelerated offshoring of jobs in many job categories. As Courtney says, “Every company seems to have the same strategy: offshore jobs, increase work hours, provide fewer benefits.�
Meanwhile, according to a June 3, 2005, Reuters story, the Indian government, in service to their free marketers, has noted the continued backlash against free-trade globalization (fromWashTech, IBM Alliance and other organizations). They are petitioning the World Trade Organization (WTO) to prevent the U.S. and other countries from taking steps to ban companies from outsourcing jobs. See this link for more.
We wonder if the Indian government and corporate free traders will meet with much opposition, given that both Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. have promoted free-trade globalization to the detriment of their own citizens and residents working in both the manufacturing and the services industries. Although there are bills that have passed in a few state legislatures to curtail offshoring of government jobs, little has been done by either party to address outsource offshoring in the private sector. Nor has there been much movement to protect workers from the effects of these tax-subsidized, government-supported trade policies.
What is clearly missing is a broad debate in the U.S. and elsewhere about free-trade globalization and its pros and
cons. We believe the reason this broad debate has not taken place is that the few potential winners in free-trade globalization want to make sure that the large numbers of losers don’t know what hit them. The losers will be workers everywhere, who will be pitted against one another in a race to the bottom.
In reaction to free-trade problems, many groups are calling for “fair trade.� Fair trade is a useful, now-voluntary approach to help indigenous communities compete in the world market. Fair trade favors labor and the environment by organizing workers in locally owned cooperatives to raise coffee and other crops with sustainable methods. However, fair trade ideas do not address the realities of billions of urban workers, including our own high-tech sector.
What urban workers need is good-paying, environmentally responsible jobs that sustain their families and communities. A powerful and comprehensive UN report titled A Fair Globalization puts job creation and economic security at the center of economic planning. According to the report, outsourcing would not be a problem if there were enough decent jobs. However, a global jobs deficit allows companies to move work wherever labor is cheapest-"and where governments are most desperate, therefore providing the highest subsidies with the lowest environmental and social protections.
The task is to address the jobs deficit with strategies to create enough decent jobs for everyone. You can read more about this report in a paper located at FairJobs.org: http://www.fairjobs.org/fairjobs/reports/ See “Outsource This? American Workers, the Jobs Deficit and Fair Globalization.� Meanwhile, we’re depending on our deep throat contacts in the high-tech sector to keep us reporting on the facts and consequences of free-trade globalization.
See the documents WashTech has obtained: Corporate Secrets Exposed
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