The Hindu : Outsourcing of jobs becomes a poll issue in U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 07, 2004

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International

Outsourcing of jobs becomes a poll issue in U.S.

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, FEB. 6. Outsourcing of jobs, especially the hi-tech ones to such countries as India, Russia, China and Brazil is becoming a political hot potato in an election year in the United States as Democratic Presidential candidates seem to be vying with one another for media attention and accusing the Bush administration of being soft on the issue. The San Jose Mercury News has quoted Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Democratic front-runner, as denouncing the Bush administration for basically rewarding the "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who move "profit and jobs" overseas. Benedict Arnold is seen as a `traitor' who defected from the ranks of the revolutionaries to join the British colonialists.

Mr. Kerry has said that while he is not for banning outsourcing per se, he is definitely for giving incentives and closing every loophole so as to make businesses stay in the U.S. Last November, the Massachusetts politician introduced a bill that would require Call Centres to disclose their locations.

The Congress with the Senate recently introduced an amendment that banned federal contract to vendors that use jobs overseas. Basically, the Senate amendment was quite narrow and was put in an omnibus spending bill to prevent federal unions from claiming that their jobs were being sent overseas.

Analysts and diplomats see in all these an attempt by politicians to ratchet up the rhetoric that would sound good in their constituencies. Law-makers are also seeking to address `abuses' in such visas as the L-1A and the L-1B. Generally, there seems to be the consensus among Republicans and Democrats that the L visa system needed to be monitored closely. However, it remains to be seen if law-makers are keen to push for numerical caps.

Those pushing for limitations, both inside and outside the political establishment, point to the `abuses' in at least two areas — on the kind of interpretation made of "specialised knowledge," and in trying to circumvent the restrictions on the H-1B visa.

On outsourcing, there is the realisation that there are no hard statistics or even how much it is that the U.S. stands to lose over the next several years. One estimate is that of the 2.4 million jobs lost since the beginning of the recession in 2001, some 300,000 can be attributed to it; and the San Jose Mercury News talks of a University of California (Berkeley) report that has estimated that some 14 million U.S. service jobs are at risk.

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