Updated: 16 Apr 2006
The list of corporations that have moved jobs overseas to save money keeps getting longer. It includes some of the biggest names in American business, but more importantly it involves the loss of hundreds and thousands of jobs.
In the first week of 2004, EarthLink announced plans to outsource 1,300 call center jobs, 40 % of its U.S. work force. Those jobs are now gone.
IBM plans to layoff 4,730 computer programmers in US, and move the work to India and China.
94% of Information Week 500 companies hire temporary or contract workers offshore; 84% outsource application development and integration; 37% maintain their applications using offshore service providers.
This is taking place across all sectors of the economy, but in the computer industry alone, the number of jobs moved overseas from the U.S. was 27,000 in 2000. By 2015, that number is expected to reach 500,000.
Outsourcing helps companies make their bottom lines look better. Too many companies care only about the bottom line, not how they get there.
Work done overseas gets done by workers who are paid a fraction of what American workers make. These workers have no benefits and no right to collective bargaining.
Just like “downsizing” became a euphemism for putting people out of work, “outsourcing” is a euphemism for moving American jobs around the globe to the cheapest labor markets.
House Democrats have responded by offering legislation – the first of its kind anywhere in the nation – that would penalize companies that ship PA jobs overseas by prohibiting them from state contract work, and by making them ineligible for state tax breaks, grant and loan benefits and other incentives. It would also require companies that do secure state and local government contracts to ensure that contract work is done by U.S. workers.
The Governor has joined this effort by proposing a state program that would reward companies who keep jobs here in the U.S. by giving them preference in the awarding of state contracts.
These measures will ensure that Pennsylvanians' tax dollars are used to help grow U.S. and state jobs, not reward companies for sending these jobs overseas.
I strongly support these Democratic measures and will work with my House colleagues to get the necessary legislation passed quickly.