HIBVISASUCKS.COM

FIGHT OUTSOURCING - WE NEED YOUR HELP GET TO WORD OUT NOW!

Charlie Crystal is running for PA US Senate against US Sen Spector.

http://www.crystleforsenate.com/offshoring.html

Stop the unfair practice of 'offshoring'

Petition: To The President and Congress of The United States Whereas the practice of “offshoring” is defined as creating jobs overseas at the expense of US workers, and Whereas a large number of “American” companies engage in the practice of offshoring in order to lower costs by securing cheap labor abroad, and Whereas American workers of all skills, education, training, and vocation are threatened with unemployment or underemployment because of the practice of offshoring, and Whereas the principle of “chasing the cheapest price” benefits the few at the expense of the many, and is the core principle informing the practice of offshoring, and Whereas we Americans embrace and follow the principles of economic justice, social justice, and equality of opportunity for all, and Whereas the labor, human rights, democratic, and environmental standards are generally lower in the countries to which said companies send our jobs, and Whereas American companies that engage in the practice of offshoring do so from the privileged position of the American business environment, to which they owe their success and to which they generally sell their goods and services, and Whereas the American economy is unlikely to recover from said practices, hurting our communities, schools, families, and national security, and Whereas the United States of America is a country and not a business, formed on the basis of the concept of “We the people”, not “we the corporation”
We, the undersigned, demand the following action to contain the practice of offshoring:

Develop a balanced solution to stop or modify the current practice of offshoring.
Create a tax incentive for US companies to curtail the practice of offshoring.
Create a tariff disincentive to curb US companies.
Ban all offshoring for US taxpayer-financed projects, including State and local contracts.
Create incentives for Venture Capital-backed startup companies to refrain from offshoring.
Conduct open, televised hearings on the practice of offshoring, with representatives from labor, small business, big business, and state governments present.
Conduct open, televised hearings concerning the fraud and abuse of the L-1 and H-1B visas.

Fight H1B Visa Immigration SUPPORT HR 2688 Write to Congress!!

See: http://www.usinpac.com/TakeAction.asp

A bill introduced on July 9, 2003 by Representative Thomas Tancredo (R-CO). This bill seeks to eliminate the H1-B visa program

The Honorable full name:
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

I am writing to express my support to HR 2688, a bill introduced on July 9, 2003 by Representative Thomas Tancredo (R-CO). This bill seeks to eliminate the H1-B visa program which allows U.S. employers to hire highly educated foreign professionals on a temporary basis. While it is highly unlikely that this bill will gather enough support to become a law, it is cause for concern in immigrant communities. The stated purpose of H.R. 2688 is to prevent 'any skilled worker from overseas to enter the US - so that Americans do not lose their jobs to immigrants'. The U.S. was, is and will continue to remain a nation of immigrants.

The H-1B program benefits the U.S. economy by allowing employers to hire professionals with specialized technical skills or knowledge while protecting the interests of U.S. workers through built-in safeguards. The H-1B program has played an important role for many types of U.S. businesses including biotechnology and healthcare, information technology, and scientific research and development. Examples of H-1B employees include medical researchers, professors, engineers, and computer professionals.

Businesses would not go the extra burdens, costs, and delays of hiring foreign professionals through the H-1B program, if they could fulfill their labor needs with U.S. workers. Employers typically hire employees under the H-1B program because they need the specialized or unique skills that the H-1B professional offers or to relieve temporary work shortages. There are important safeguards built-in to the H-1B program that ensure that employers protect U.S. workers when they hire H-1B professionals; if they fail to comply with the regulations, employers may be subject to investigations and/or hefty monetary penalties. Employers also must pay a fee of $1,000 for each H-1B application, in addition to application fees and other associated costs. Without the H-1B program, it would be impossible for U.S. companies to maintain a competitive edge in the global market. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has pointed out that the U.S. continues to need the H1-B visa program and that we still have needs to hire skilled workers from overseas. Last year, some 79,000 H1-B visas were granted, showing the need for this visa category.

It is my fervent hope that you will not only support this measure, but that you will introduce and support even more reasonable bills on that restrict immigration. As a voting member in your constituency I appreciate and applaud your anti-immigrant position and thank you for your help in fighting such just bills as HR 2688. I am confident that you will act in the interest of our businesses; education, research and immigration needs and support such a bill to become law. I also oppose the initiative of the United States Indian American Political Action Committee (USINPAC) together with the various other pro-immigration and pro-business coalitions that have come together to fight this just bill.

Sincerely yours,
Your name and address

http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/031020_md.cfm

MD State Lawmaker to Fight Export of Jobs

By Mark Gruenberg Oct 20, 2003
Press Associates Union News Service

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (PAI) -- Pauline Menes wants to stop export of white-collar jobs from Maryland before an exodus starts. And the way to do so, the state delegate believes, is to put the weight of the state government behind the Free State's white-collar workers. Menes, a Democrat from College Park, met Oct. 15 in its city hall with unionists concerned about the issue, to discuss strategy for and details of legislation on the issue that she will introduce in the state capital of Annapolis next year. Her legislation, like measures in other states, would ban state agencies and contractors from exporting white-collar jobs -- computer techs, data processing, engineering and the like -- to other countries. Those exports deprive U.S. workers of jobs. Though Maryland has yet to experience such an exodus of white-collar government jobs, other states had such migration. And the departure of private white-collar jobs is worse. Public pressure in New Jersey, for example, forced the state to bring nine white-collar jobs that a contractor had outsourced to India -- handling a "help line" for welfare recipients -- back to Camden, an area of high unemployment. But in Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush (R) let some similar welfare-related jobs go overseas via a state contractor.

Studies estimate that at least 3.3 million private-sector white collar jobs will be exported in the next decade to nations such as Russia, China and India. There, workers with similar skills would perform them -- at much lower cost -- for firms such as Microsoft, IBM, the Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard. Meanwhile, high-tech workers here at home would be jobless -- and the vaunted "information economy" which was supposed to make up for blue-collar job losses would not do so. Menes admits her bill would affect few state government jobs, but it would have more impact on state contractors. And its real impact is as a signal to Maryland's high-tech companies. "It's a way to influence them," she points out.

"We have to take people to Annapolis who know the problem and get them to talk to the (legislative) committees about it" at next year’s hearings, she said. "That way they would understand its importance to you and to the rest of the labor movement." That may be easier said than done. "White collar workers have traditionally not been very good at advocating for themselves," said Paul Almeida, President of the AFL-CIO Department of Professional Employees, who attended the meeting. "If the public was aware and raised its voice, this would stop." That happened in New Jersey, he noted.

Other participants included top DPE official Mike Gildea, and Mike Blain of WashTech -- a Seattle-based Communications Workers local that has led the fight on the issue. They agreed a state-by-state strategy is the best way to get federal attention to the white-collar job exodus. Some federal lawmakers are already paying attention. The House Small Business Committee held its second hearing on the issue on Oct. 20.

And the Justice Department is investigating a case where a California-based manufacturer of Palm Pilot-type devices sent its techs over to India to train workers, promised the techs their jobs would not be dumped after they came back, and then reneged. Menes introduced legislation last year to ban export of state-funded white collar jobs, but did not mobilize support for battling the job exports, except for a letter from officials in one department of GOP Governor Robert Ehrlich's administration.

"I thought it was so clear that union people experienced in the information technology field would come out" for hearings on it, she said. But none showed up. Blain noted the AFL-CIO can use the white-collar job exodus as an organizing tool. As an example, he said WashTech's email list in New Jersey grew by more than 500 percent in the months after WashTech circulated word of the transfer of the nine white-collar jobs to India, before their return to Camden.

"We mobilized people via emails and action alerts and, within two weeks, they generated more than 1,200 e-mails and faxes to state legislators" leading to the return of the jobs, he said. And WashTech now has a critical mass for organizing in the Garden State. "As we have different events nationwide, people respond. But here in Maryland we can be ahead of the game" with Menes' bill, Blain explained. "We have to play up the insanity of sending jobs overseas at a time when we have high unemployment in our own country," Almeida concluded.

Paul Almeida, President, AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees - We have to play up the insanity of sending jobs overseas at a time when we have high unemployment in our own country.'

See. www.dpeaflcio.org palmedia@dpeaflcio.org

www.ifpte.org & http://www.ifpte.org/news/pdfs/PEA.pr.pdf

http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa12270.html

HOUSE OF DELEGATES

[photo, Pauline H. Menes, State Delegate] PAULINE H. MENES
Democrat, District 21, Anne Arundel & Prince George's Counties

Lowe House Office Building, Room 210
84 College Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21401 - 1991
(410) 841-3114, (301) 858-3114
1-800-492-7122, ext. 3114 (toll free)
e-mail: pauline_menes@house.state.md.us
fax: (410) 841-3116, (301) 858-3116

3517 Marlbrough Way
College Park, MD 20740 - 3925
(301) 935-6270

Indiana Lawmakers fights Outsourcing of Jobs to Tata

Information Week Anti-Outsourcing Legislation Oct. 13, 2003

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15300050

An Indiana state senator is drafting legislation to restrict public agencies' ability to outsource it work to foreign countries or to use vendors whose U.S. staff consists largely of visa workers. Jeff Drozda, a Republican from the Indiana district of Westfield, found out that a state agency charged with job creation had outsourced work to India's Tata Consultancy Services.

http://www.in.gov/legislative/senate_republicans/homepages/s21/10-6-03.htm

Senator Jeff Drozda

Senator Jeff Drozda

Indiana State Senator, District 21 200 W. Washington Street Indianapolis, IN 46204 (317) 232-9400 (800) 382-9467

October 6, 2003 Letter Spotlight: Jeff Drozda Offshore deal won't Energize Indiana

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by a former information technology executive who expressed concern that a major contract was to be awarded by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development to a firm notorious for displacing American high-tech workers with L-1 visa immigrants. All of this was to be done with $39.3 million of taxpayer funds via federal dollars paid through the Energize Indiana program. After voicing my concerns with high-ranking officials from the DWD, I was informed that the contract had not been awarded and DWD was fully aware of the concerns that some had about awarding this contract to an Indian firm. On Sept. 29, The Star reported that DWD awarded the contract to the same foreign company in question. As a member of the Indiana General Assembly as well as a taxpayer, I am outraged at the lack of common sense on this decision. Energize Indiana's claim to fame was to "create 200,000 new high-wage, high-skill jobs, grow per-capita income faster than the national average, and invest in (Indiana's) people and their future." In this most recent contract award, it is hard to see the connection. This outrage is not limited to any political party or profession. The IT community, other white-collar professionals, union members, and Democrat and Republican policymakers are all scratching their heads on this one.

Workforce officials declared that no Indiana firm bid on this contract. Why? There aren't any Indiana firms that do this type of work? Then maybe we should use the Energize Indiana funds to create firms that do. After all, we need to start doing something. A recent report revealed that Indiana will decline in national standings in the areas of research and development, and there will be no increase in the number of newly created high-tech jobs. Alan Degner, DWD commissioner, was quoted as saying that the foreign winner is "committed to paying U.S. market wages." This offshore corporation says it will pay the U.S. Department of Labor's prevailing wage for each type of worker. A programmer analyst would be paid at least $36,733 a year. However, after reviewing the Department of Labor's Web site, one can see that the mean annual rate for an Indiana computer systems analyst is $53,780. Do state officials not have any legal or moral responsibility to put Indiana workers first? Will these H1-B and L-1 temporary workers pay state income taxes and local property taxes? What are we saying to those students in colleges and universities around the state who are working on degrees in these areas? As a newly appointed member of the Indiana Human Resources Investment Council, I have asked the chairman to place this issue on the agenda for the next meeting. The council has jurisdiction over the use of federal job training funds as well as make recommendations to the governor on human investment needs in Indiana. I anticipate the questions will not stop there. Policymakers should be asking many more questions in the months ahead, especially as the state continues to release additional funds to "Energize" Indiana. It is unfortunate that common sense was absent on this contract award. As one local union official told me, "They should have pulled this one back; what were they thinking?" Drozda is a Republican state senator from Westfield

http://www.in.gov/dwd/

The Energize Indiana vision has become a reality. As a part of the Energize Indiana economic development plan the Department of Workforce Development has two special initiatives.

	To put more Hoosiers to work in high-skill, high-demand occupations and help employers find those workers
	To make our Unemployment Insurance system work faster and more efficiently while saving employers and workers time and money

Through the 21st Century JOBS initiative and Unemployment Insurance Modernization, DWD will do our part to help move Indiana into an exciting future full of more possibilities than ever before.

Job Opportunities Business Services (JOBS)

The JOBS initiative was created to strengthen and diversify Indiana's economy by focusing on four targeted sectors - Advanced Manufacturing, Information Technology, 21st Century Logistics, and Life Sciences. The JOBS initiative was allocated $25 million in federal money over five years as a part of House Enrolled Act 1001.

The primary goal of this statewide effort is to place Hoosier workers in high-wage, high-skill and high-demand occupations. Money allocated will allow DWD to build on already existing job placement tools and start exciting new initiatives to connect Hoosier workers with the employers who need their sophisticated skills. Through the JOBS initiative, three main goals will be accomplished: Workforce recruitment; worker assessment and job profiling; and job placement.

http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/njoutsourcing1.cfm

March 13, 2003

NJ legislator: Reports in Indian press on outsourcing bill are 'completely false'

By Mike Blain

Responding to reports in the Indian press that she helped block a state bill that aims to stop offshore outsourcing of state government projects, New Jersey Sen. Shirley Turner has labled such claims as "completely false".

Capitol dome Take Action!
Tell New Jersey legislators you believe they should support A2425/S1349, which to stop offshore outsourcing of work done on state government contracts.

The India Times reported earlier this week that Sen. Turner had helped to table the bill after heavy lobbying by the Information Technology Association of American, and its Indian counterpart, which also lobbies in New Jersey.

"This is another dirty tactic by the individuals who seek to see this bill destroyed," wrote Sen. Turner in an email to supporters. She added that she had been "extremely encouraged" by all the emails and faxes she had received in support of the bill.

The TechsUnite web action in support of the New Jersey bill has generated nearly 150,000 total messages to 120 New Jersey legislators in the past week. New Jersey Assembly Rep. Gary Guear (D-14) reports that the TechsUnite online campaign has already set a one-day record for the number of emails received by his office.

http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/031024_congress.cfm

White-collar Job Flight Concerns Lawmakers

By Mark Gruenberg October 24, 2003 Press Associates Union News Service

'At what point will we send so many jobs overseas that we won't have any jobs here to buy the products, regardless of where they're made?'

-- U.S. Representative Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), speaking at a House Small Business Committee Hearing

(See Numbers this shows his actions do not follow his statements ...He has a track record on this issue just as poor as many other political figures.)

WASHINGTON (PAI) -- The flight of white-collar jobs overseas, never to return, is catching lawmakers' attention. But measures to deal with it face opposition from the information technology industry's lobby group. Those views emerged at an Oct. 20 House Small Business Committee hearing, the second on the issue. It featured a former Silicon Valley worker telling lawmakers about the human impact of the white-collar job flight--and the information technology asso-ciation’s lobbyist claiming the problem is overstated. Studies show up to 3.3 million high-tech and white-collar jobs--those of call center workers, computer software engineers, automotive engineers, financial services workers and the like--will be exported from the U.S. to developing nations such as Russia, China and India during the next decade. Those jobs would take $136 billion in payroll with them. Such job exports also cut or eliminate opportunities for U.S. high-tech workers and graduates of U.S. universities, Committee Chairman Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) said. "At what point will we send so many jobs overseas that we won't have any jobs here to buy the products, regardless of where they're made?" he asked. Natasha Humphries' job has already left, for India. Humphries, the former senior quality assurance engineer at Palm, Inc.--a maker of Palm Pilots--told the panel she and other engineers were sent from California to India in late 2002 to train engineers there in software quality assurance testing. They returned to the U.S., were promised their jobs would remain--and were laid off in August. Fourteen engineers, or 40 percent of the firm's QA engineering workforce, lost their jobs. Only one has found subsequent employment. "After securing bids for pay rates as low as $2 to $5 an hour, or $4,200-$10,400 a year, management made the decision to outsource all testing assignments to software quality assurance engineers in India," she explained. That saved Palm, which was "struggling to...meet Wall Street and shareholder fiscal expectations...50 percent to 70 percent on salaries alone," Humphries added. Outsourcing continues at Palm. Humphries, who is working with the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees on the white collar job export issue, said education and retraining for advanced work--as the Bush administration proposes--may not solve the problem. She cited her constant education, during her years with Palm and her 7-year career, to improve her information technology knowledge and skills. And then she told lawmakers about the runaround Palm gave her when she tried to continue her upgrades after returning from the training sessions she ran in India. By mid-2003, Palm was outsourcing other testing and information technology tasks to India, and ultimately the U.S. software engineers, including Humphries, lost their jobs. She's not alone. "During TechsUnite meetings, I have met many software engineers and information technology workers who have been unemployed or underemployed on average between 18-24 months," she testified. And the panel released a partial list of U.S. white-collar jobs sent offshore in recent months. It featured some big names in U.S. business--and 3,400 state government payroll jobs. General Electric sent 10,000 information services jobs, some from Georgia, to India. Electronic Data Systems--Ross Perot's ex-company--exported 13,800 jobs to several nations. In 1992, Perot warned of the "giant sucking sound" of job loss to NAFTA. Microsoft spent $100 million on a new call center in the Philippines. Citigroup and Bank of America both sent software development jobs--similar to Humphries'--to India. Northwest Airlines established a call center there. AT&T and Hewlett-Packard set up call centers in the Philippines. Lawmakers and witnesses offered few solutions for the job flight, though both Manzullo and Humphries said the U.S. tax system needs revision to encourage firms to keep jobs here and to penalize firms that export jobs abroad. "Current laws promote offshoring," Humphries told the committee. "An e-mail sent to me noted that current law does not make distinctions between American and foreign labor" in giving companies tax incentives for job creation. She also suggested creation of a think-tank to consider all the issues involved in exporting white-collar jobs overseas, including taxes, trade and retraining, and for what."Retraining didn't reverse Palm's decision" to fire her and her colleagues, Humphries pointed out.

http://www.house.gov/delauro/press/2003/L1_bill_7-10-03.htm

US House of Representatives

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                Contact: Lesley Sillaman
July 10, 2003                                                                                                                                    (202) 225-3661
                                                                                                                                               www.house.gov/delauro

DeLauro Introduces Bipartisan Legislation
to Protect American Workers

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) today introduced bipartisan legislation, titled the “L-1 Non-Immigration Reform Act” that would close the loopholes in the immigration law that allow large corporations to bring in foreign workers, pay them less, and replace good paying American jobs held by American citizens.

“This legislation would protect American workers from losing jobs by preventing companies from using L-1 visas to displace American workers for foreign workers working for less money,” said DeLauro. “At a time when domestic unemployment is at an all-time high and tens and thousands of jobless tech workers and others are looking for work, it is important to close the loopholes that disadvantage American workers.”

The L-1 visa program allows a multi-national corporation to bring into the U.S. employees from their overseas subsidiaries on an “intra-company transfer” basis. The only requirements are that these guest workers must have worked for the company for one year out of the last three years prior to the transfer and the foreign worker’s prior education , training, and employment must qualify him/her to perform the intended services in the U.S. The L-1 visa is issued for one year and is renewable for up to five years and seven years for high level executives.

The L-1 visa program has no safeguards in place to ensure that corporations do not use the program to bring in lower wage labor to displace American workers. For example, under the L-1 program, there is no limit on the total number of foreign workers that can be brought into the U.S.; a corporation does not have to apply with the Department of Labor to attest that they are not displacing American workers; there is no requirement that the L-1 foreign guest worker can be paid prevailing wages and benefits for the duration of their employment; and corporations can execute blanket petitions for the L-1 transferees.

DeLauro’s legislation would specifically address these issues by:

• Placing a cap of 35,000 annual L-1 visas allowed;

• Banning the practice of filing blanket petitions to hire L-1 workers;

• Prohibit L-1 visa to any firm that has laid off an American worker within the preceding six months and for six months after the application is filed;

• Add a prevailing wage requirement to protect L-1 workers and to protect U.S. workers from being displaced by lower wage L-1 visa holders;

• Require the L-1 guest worker to have been employed by the petitioning firm full time, continuously for three years; authorize the Department of Labor to conduct ongoing surveys of the level of compliance by employers of the provisions and requirements of the L-1 visa program, and permit the secretary of Labor to impose administrative remedies.

“Our economy has been in a downturn for three years,” said DeLauro. “More than three million people have lost their jobs since President Bush took office. Now, more than ever, we need to ensure that all Americans have access to good-paying jobs. Closing the loopholes in the L-1 visas will ensure that Americans are given opportunities to work.”

Currently, the legislation is cosponsored by:

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT)
Rep. George Miller (D-CA)
Rep. John F. Tierney (D-MA)
Rep. James McGovern (D-MA)
Rep. Bernard Sanders (I-VT)
Rep. Major Owens (D-NY)
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Rep. Gene Green (D-TX)

May 31, 2003

May 30, 2003

Rep. Inslee says U.S. won’t stem outsourcing

WashTech News
By David Beckman

'We want to keep the doors open. I believe any effort to restrict market access will adversely impact the U.S. economy. The policy of protectionism will not take us anywhere.'

-- Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA).

Despite appeals from many of his constituents to help stem the flow of high-tech jobs to countries like India, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) of Washington state is in New Delhi this week, where he assured Indian government officials and business executives that any measures currently before state legislatures or the U.S. Congress which aim to curb offshore outsourcing are likely to fail.

“These bills won’t go anywhere,” the Associated Press reported Inslee as saying Wednesday.

Inslee said he traveled to India this week to promote trade opportunities for his state’s businesses, namely Boeing and Microsoft. He was also scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Third Annual Baramati Initiative on Information Computer Technology and Development.

During a telephone interview from New Delhi Friday, Inslee said that his trip was paid for by Digital Partners, a group that describes itself as a Seattle-based non-profit institute with chapters in the United States and India. Many of the group’s leaders are past or current Microsoft employees who are from India.

Digital Partners Web site says the organization aims to tap the power of the digital economy to “develop market-based solutions that benefit the world's poor.”

Numerous Indian press reports this week quoted Inslee as saying that U.S. companies will continue to outsource jobs to India, despite proposed measures in states like Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut that would prohibit government contracts from being outsourced offshore.

The New Jersey Senate passed a bill in December that would prohibit offshore outsourcing of state projects. The bill has since been held up in committee, after intense lobbying from U.S. and Indian tech employers, and is scheduled for a hearing in June.

Contact Rep. Inslee about IT offshoring
Send a message to Rep. Inslee and let him know that offshore outsourcing is an issue of concern to consituents in his district, hundreds of thousands of IT workers throughout the United States, and millions of U.S. citizens.

Inslee said no one from Digital Partners has approached him about the issue of offshore outsourcing, but the primary issue he has been asked about by the Indian press and government and business leaders is about whether the U.S. government will restrict offshore outsourcing. There is a great deal of concern in India that Congress will act to curb India’s access to U.S. labor markets, he said.

Many Indian officials proclaim that their country’s vast pool of English-speaking, highly-skilled technical workers have helped transform their country into a self-described, “outsourcing superpower.”

“I can empathize with dislocated workers,” Inslee said. “I welcome any solution that will create jobs.”

He said the best solution is not to restrict U.S. companies from outsourcing, but to increase trade.

“We have to compete internationally — we have to sell our products overseas,” he said.

Inslee said he was not aware of any measure in Washington state to introduce a bill to curb outsourcing.

Indian government officials have charged that such measures to curb outsourcing prohibit free market access and have vowed they would take up the matter with the World Trade Organization should any of the bills become law.

“People are worried about job security in the U.S. and therefore it is not terribly surprising to find a few people who will oppose outsourcing to other countries,” The Economic Times of India quoted Inslee as saying.

Inslee represents Washington State's 1st congressional district and is a member of the Democratic Advisory Group on high-tech issues. Much of his district comprises King and Snohomish counties, home to huge multinational companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co. But since 2001, the district has been plagued by the economic downturn and massive aerospace and tech industry layoffs. State economists say that within the past two years more than 80,000 jobs have been lost in King and Snohomish counties alone. Many of those jobs have been lost to offshore outsourcing.

“I don’t think it [a ban on offshore outsourcing] is going to happen,” Inslee said. “We want to keep the doors open. I believe any effort to restrict market access will adversely impact the U.S. economy. The policy of protectionism will not take us anywhere.”

In his district, Inslee must answer to two large groups that may already be showing signs of polarization. One is the software industry, which embraces offshore outsourcing as a way to boost profit margins by cutting labor costs.

The other is organized labor, which opposes replacing domestic workers with less expensive foreign labor.

'Why should taxpayers in this state have to subsidize the elimination of their own jobs, through tax giveaways to companies that ship jobs overseas?'

-- WashTech member Mike Blain

“Companies like Boeing and Microsoft receive significant state and local tax breaks that are explicitly intended to stimulate economic development and job creation in Washington state,” said Mike Blain, a past president and current editor-in-chief for the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, or WashTech, in Seattle. "But now many companies are taking these tax breaks – really public subsidies from taxpayers -- and then offshoring as much work as possible."

"Why should taxpayers in this state have to subsidize the elimination of their own jobs, through tax giveaways to companies that ship jobs overseas?" Blain asks. "We think that offshore outsourcing and tech tax breaks should to be linked – if you offshore jobs that were formerly based in Washington, your state and local tax breaks should be curtailed or eliminated entirely. "

Marcus Courtney, WashTech’s current president, said that since mid-January, WashTech members and supporters around the country have sent more than 10,000 email and fax messages to members of Congress regarding the movement offshore of high-tech jobs, supporting the union’s call for a congressional study of offshore outsourcing.

“These are our best-paying, highest-skilled jobs,” Courtney said. “I would hardly call those numbers ‘a few people.’”

During the 2002 elections, Inslee received more high-tech money in campaign contributions than any other member of Congress, according to opensecrets.org, a Web site that tracks campaign contributions in U.S. elections. Most of the contributions -- $82,100 – came from the Microsoft Corporation Political Action Committee, or individual Microsoft employees.

Inslee received more money from organized labor groups than he did from the software industry. Still, while seven of his top 10 contributors in the 2002 campaign were unions, the $82,100 he received from the Microsoft PAC or its employees was more than the combined contributions of those seven labor organizations.

Back to http://www.OutsourceCongress.org:81/

Outsource NY Rep Joseph Crowley, District 7
Email Rep Crowley's entire staff Email Rep Crowley's Staff and voice your opinion NY Rep. Joseph Crowley write2joecrowley@mail.house.gov Chris.McCannell@mail.house.gov Suzanne.Anziska@mail.house.gov Kevin.Casey@mail.house.gov Gregg.Sheiowitz@mail.house.gov Angela.Ramirez@mail.house.gov Sarig.Armenian@mail.house.gov


US will not ban outsourcing: Congressman From siliconindia News Thursday, April 17, 2003 Joseph Crowley, a visiting US Congressman, has said a New Jersey bill that seeks to ban outsourcing of technical jobs to non-US entities is an unhealthy legislation and such laws will not find favour with other American states. MUMBAI: "I don't think this is a healthy legislation, as outsourcing results in a win-win situation for both the countries," Crowley, the New York Congressman, told reporters on the sidelines of a function organised in Mumbai, by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Nasscom. Crowley, who heads India Caucus, is visiting India along with a group of US legislators. He allayed fears that Indian software industry and professionals would be gradually barred from operating in the US. Who does NY Rep Joseph Crowley care for? India Outsourcers or his Constituents? More jobs lost in Crowley's NY district "About 2.6 million jobs were lost in US during the last two years, with a million quarter from New York itself. This is highly sensitive issue and we'll have to guarantee jobs to our citizens," he said, adding outsourcing increased job opportunities in both India and US. Earlier, speaking at the seminar Crowley said India was an "elephant" among Asian tigers. "India might have a slow start, but once set off there is no stopping the country." Sheila Jackson Lee, a US legislator, said reduction in number of visas to US, which would be reviewed this November, was due to a slowdown in US economy. "This is not a negative move, because as economy revives the cap will be also raised," she added. Talking on the Enron issue, Lee said that more trasparency should be brought in to check unethical practices.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32673

BIZNETDAILY
Cheap labor at America's expense
3.3 million U.S. jobs predicted to be transferred offshore by 2015

Posted: May 20, 2003
5:00 p.m. Eastern

Editor's note: WorldNetDaily is pleased to have a content-sharing agreement with Insight magazine, the bold Washington publication not afraid to ruffle establishment feathers. Subscribe to Insight at WorldNetDaily's online store and save 71 percent off the cover price.

By Kelly Patricia O'Meara
© 2003 News World Communications Inc.

"Hey, it's good work if you can get it," says New Jersey state Sen. Shirley Turner about the outsourcing of the Garden State's welfare-processing contract. But neither New Jerseyites nor any other Americans are getting the work, so she has introduced legislation that she believes will keep those jobs at home.

Turner, a Democrat, filed her proposal after learning that the New Jersey Department of Human Services had contracted with an Arizona-based company to service paperwork for the state's welfare recipients at the "cost-saving" price of $326,000 a month. The Arizona company had established a call center in Green Bay, Wis., but once the New Jersey contract came through, the call center was relocated to Bombay, India.

"It seems like a race to the bottom," says Turner. "All these jobs are leaving the state and the country, and our unemployment rate continues to climb. We're in a recession and you have to wonder where it ends. The point of the contract was to save money - assuming that these people overseas can do it cheaper and more efficiently. But this is a ruse because we're supposed to help provide jobs to these [unemployed] people here."

The irate Turner continues, "Neither the people in India who have the jobs, nor the people who are unemployed here in the U.S., are giving anything back in the way of taxes or buying and consuming U.S. goods and services, which is what stimulates our economy. By outsourcing these jobs to other countries we're helping the poor remain poor in this country. We have a $5 billion deficit in New Jersey and outsourcing these jobs to foreign countries only adds to the burden that the state must pick up when our citizens need [welfare] services. When people lose their jobs, and their unemployment benefits run out, the state must step in and take up the burden to provide the services. That's not cost savings and it really just snowballs when jobs are taken offshore."

Turner's bill has made it through the New Jersey Senate but has run into stiff opposition in the General Assembly from lobbies representing companies taking advantage of the cheap offshore labor. And no wonder: Outsourcing to countries that exploit cheap labor appears to be the corporate wave of the future. Kishore Mirchandani, president of Outsource Partners International, a U.S.-based company specializing in outsourcing finance and accounting services, tells Insight, "There are a lot of companies in India handling the accounting and finance of major corporations. General Electric, American Express and Citibank all do business in India."

Mirchandani's company, although U.S.-based, handles the tax-return preparation for the business clients of the accounting firm Ernst & Young at Outsource Partners' facilities in India. "We get business from CPA [certified public accountant] firms in the U.S.," explains Mirchandani, "who then contract with us to get the processing of returns in India. We have about 700 people working for us between India and the United States. A lot of people have raised concerns about the privacy of information, but we have taken steps to ensure that all information is secure."

According to Mirchandani, "the cost savings are tremendous." He says, "The cost to process these returns is anywhere between $100 to $200, whereas in the U.S. the processing would cost $400 to $600. If they outsource it to us the CPA firm saves $300. We hire accountants at about 25 percent of what it costs here in the U.S. A lot of major corporations have already done the outsourcing on their own and our company is an alternative to the companies who don't want to handle the outsourcing directly. General Electric has 12,000 people in its office in India to do its processing of financial information, and these are mostly Indians working there."

To get a better idea of just how many corporations are exporting jobs to take advantage of cheap labor overseas, this magazine followed up on those Mirchandani leads. General Electric did not return Insight's calls. Ken Kerrigan, a spokesman for Ernst & Young, confirmed that his company outsources tax-return processing to India.

"Ernst & Young," explained Kerrigan, has "an office in India and we send [tax] information through our networks so there is no physical paper that goes there. The people who work in our offices in India are locals but are trained by Americans who know tax law."

According to Kerrigan, just "2 percent of all U.S. tax returns done by Ernst & Young are processed in India. It's a tiny percentage that allows us to work faster and better. The labor is cheaper, but that's not an issue for anybody. For us it's more of a time factor."

Tim Connolly, a spokesman for the accounting firm KPMG, tells Insight that "we are not currently outsourcing returns to India. However, if we did proceed, we would ensure that it was a joint decision and that each client was consulted beforehand. Any firm involved in tax-preparation business is continuously seeking to provide the highest-quality service in the most efficient manner. As technological advances progress, we're considering all options to serving our clients."

Rob Black, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, sees the current tidal wave of American jobs floating boats to foreign shores much in the same way as state Sen. Turner. "Essentially what you've got," says Black, "is a race to the bottom for the cheapest wages." Black explains: "First we saw corporations in the Northeast move to the Southern states where there were no strong unions. Then, in the 1990s with the unfair trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA], we saw corporations move to Mexico. Now these companies have been in Mexico awhile and the workers' standards are rising a little so, sure enough, the jobs are being moved to Guatemala, China and India. So really, these corporations are just chasing the globe for the cheapest labor rates possible."

According to the Teamsters spokesman, "The people with big business that are on the side of unfair trade love to talk about the markets this allegedly will open for U.S. products, but the fact is workers in Bangladesh aren't buying our personal computers and video games. And any cost benefits that are gained by shipping jobs overseas clearly are going to the top executives, not the consumers. It's hard to accept salary reductions and layoffs when the executives of these corporations aren't feeling the same pain. Slash and burn may be the overnight cure for shareholders' woes, but if you invest in workers you will build a stable citizenry that will buy your products."

The U.S. Department of Labor released figures for the last week in April that revealed U.S. employers had cut jobs for the third straight month. Unemployment rose to 6 percent, meaning that 448,000 people filed new claims for unemployment benefits the last week of April, which was only slightly down from the previous week's 461,000 claims. This is not good, even without outsourcing American jobs to India and elsewhere.

But, Insight found, trying to get solid figures about the level of outsourcing is about as difficult as finding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Corporations such as American Express, rather than identify the number of jobs that are being handled outside the United States either by Americans or foreigners, tells Insight that "we've built flexibility into our business model to better withstand external fluctuations in the marketplace. This includes outsourcing some work." Such as the IBM deal.

According to Susan Korchak, a spokeswoman for American Express, the "IBM deal" is a $4 billion, seven-year contract awarded to IBM to provide American Express with utilitylike access to its vast computing resources. Whether IBM is outsourcing any of those services to foreign countries is "unknown" to Korchak. However, IBM has acknowledged having such service centers in India, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Canada and China.

According to market-research firms Gartner Inc. and Forrester Research, as reported by Ed Frauenheim of CNET News, "More than 300 of the Fortune 500 firms do business with Indian information-technology-services companies." And it is predicted that "by 2004, more than 80 percent of U.S. companies will have considered using offshore IT services." Furthermore, Frauenheim reports that according to Forrester Research, "by 2015, some 3.3 million U.S. jobs and $136 billion in wages will transfer offshore to countries such as India, Russia, China and the Philippines."

These figures represent only outsourced information-technology services such as credit-card and bank financial transactions that are contracted by U.S. companies to be performed for miniscule wages by foreign citizens. The figures do not account for the $500 billion trade deficit the United States now is facing with its trading partners.

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/

S1349 Provides that only citizens or persons authorized to work in the US pursuant to federal law may be employed in performing certain State contracts. *
State Government

Identical Bill Number: A2425 Turner, Shirley K. as Primary Sponsor Palaia, Joseph A. as Co-Sponsor Allen, Diane B. as Co-Sponsor Gill, Nia H. as Co-Sponsor Matheussen, John J. as Co-Sponsor


3/21/02 Introduced And Referred To Senate State Government Committee 9/19/02 Reported Senate Committee Amendments 2nd Reading 12/16/02 Passed Senate (40-0) 12/16/02 Received In Assembly Referred To Assembly State Government Committee Introduced - 2 pages PDF Format HTML Format Statement - SSG 9/19/02 - 1 pages PDF Format HTML Format Reprint - 2 pages PDF Format HTML Format

SENATE STATE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 1349

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: SEPTEMBER 19, 2002

The Senate State Government Committee reports favorably Senate Bill No. 1349.

This bill directs the Director of the Division of Purchase and Property and the Director of the Division of Property Management and Construction in the Department of the Treasury to include in every State contract for the performance of services provisions which specify that only citizens of the United States and persons authorized to work in the United States pursuant to federal law may be employed in the performance of services under the contract or any subcontract awarded under the contract.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

The committee amended the bill to provide that in addition to United States citizens, any person authorized to work in the United States pursuant to federal law, not just legal resident aliens, may be employed in the performance of services under a State contract.

ASSEMBLY, No. 2425

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

210th LEGISLATURE

INTRODUCED JUNE 13, 2002

Software Success Has India Worried

Namas Bhojani for The New York Times

A crowd lined up last December to apply for jobs at a call center in Bangalore, India. The software and services industry has been growing robustly despite the broader slowdown in technology spending.

By SARITHA RAI

OMBAY, Feb. 12 — Is the United States going to start turning its back on outsourcing, the lifeblood of India's software and services industry?

The global economic downturn and possible war with Iraq are, of course, big concerns for industry executives, who are gathered here this week for an annual industry conference to meet with analysts, consultants and the chief information officers from American corporations, their most important customers. But the growing threat of a political reaction against outsourcing is the worry dominating the discussion.

So far, the only concrete signs of a reaction are in the public sector. After the eFunds Corporation of Scottsdale, Ariz., a contractor hired by the State of New Jersey to manage a welfare and food-stamp program, moved its customer-service operations to Bombay from Wisconsin, a New Jersey legislator, Shirley K. Turner, introduced a bill that would require that workers hired under state contracts be American citizens or legal aliens or they occupy some specialty niche that American workers cannot be found to fill. " `I say it's time to bring 'em back from Bombay,' Senator Turner said of the client service jobs currently based in India," a news release stated.

Connecticut, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Missouri have also begun considering such laws.

Though public-sector work directly accounts for only a tiny part of India's software and services exports to the United States, executives here are concerned about a chilling effect, with American customers reluctant to send work overseas lest it complicate dealings with government bodies.

The $10 billion software and services industry is hugely important to India. It has so far grown robustly despite the broader slowdown in technology spending, as more Western companies, especially American ones, cut expensive jobs at home and contract out software development and support, call-center operations and other functions to low-cost suppliers in India and elsewhere. By 2008 the Indian government expects the industry to account for about 8 percent of all economic output, up from 2.87 percent now.

More than half the world's top 500 companies, including General Electric and American Express, outsource work to India.

To supply the demand, Indian companies like the Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies and Wipro, and Tata Consultancy Services, or T.C.S., of Bombay, part of the Tata conglomerate, have been hiring by the hundreds, bucking the generally sluggish global trend. Revenue from software and services exports from India were $6.9 billion in the last three quarters of 2002, up 28 percent from the period in 2001, according to data released Tuesday by the National Association of Software and Services Companies. The association, known as Nasscom, organized this week's conference.

The legislation being considered in several states has software and services executives worried that American opposition to outsourcing in India is growing. They worry that regardless of whether such laws are enacted, the sentiment will spread. It may, they fear, slow companies' decisions to outsource — and perhaps even encourage them to send work to other countries.

India's exporters are divided over whether such legislation should be challenged at the World Trade Organization. "Legislation banning contracts from going abroad is a nontariff barrier, and we are exploring the possibility of countering this at the W.T.O.," Nasscom's president, Kiran Karnik, said.

But some leading companies with large American corporations among their customers said that the job loss issue was emotional and was best underplayed.

Even within Nasscom, a division was evident this morning at a session on global technology trends. When one panelist, E. Jeffrey Berg, executive director of Citigroup Program Management, brought up the proposed New Jersey legislation, Som Mittal, vice chairman of Nasscom and chief executive of Digital GlobalSoft, an Indian subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, cut in, saying that even a discussion would sensationalize the issue.

Nasscom has recently engaged the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to work with businesses and politicians in the United States to counter the opposition toward outsourcing to India and to increase the global brand equity of the Indian software industry.

While in the past there has been opposition in the United States to moving manufacturing jobs overseas, those moves primarily affected blue-collar workers. Now, the jobs of white-collar workers are on the line. "This is the vocal, articulate middle class who form an important constituency of every political party," Mr. Karnik said.

Nasscom said it was campaigning to show how Indian software and services exporters were helping the American economy to be more effective. In a letter to the governor of New Jersey, Nasscom said its preliminary data indicated that outsourcing to India gave American banks a 10 percent to 20 percent cost advantage over their European peers and resulted in an $8 billion savings for the banking industry in the last four years.

Nasscom is also talking to nearly 40 state senators in New Jersey in a campaign against the legislation, saying that state governments would have to burden their citizens with more taxes if they insisted that work be done in high-cost locations.

Despite the controversy, outsourcing deals are still being struck by Indian companies. Among them, the World Bank is scheduled to announce next week a $10 million to $20 million technology services deal outsourced to an Indian software company. "Backlash is a natural reaction even at the World Bank, but in this era of globalization, sustaining business and securing jobs is more likely to happen if projects are executed in the most efficient destinations," said Mohamed V. Muhsin, chief information officer of the World Bank.

Gartner Inc., the research firm based in Stamford, Conn., has prepared a note advising its Indian clients to promote the value of their services not just to customers but to the public.

In the note, "How to handle backlash against offshore services," two Gartner analysts, Rolf Jester and Partha Iyengar, warn, "To ignore the problem, or to pretend it is not real, is to allow negative perceptions to fester, generating a climate of opinion in which selling becomes more difficult

Recent Events

Location

Gainey Center II
8501 North Scottsdale Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85253

Phone: (480) 629-7700
Email: debra.ford@efunds.com

Employees (last reported count): 4,350

Company Website

·Home Page

Index Membership

·S&P 600 SmallCap

Ownership

·	Insider and 5%+ Owners: 1%
·	Institutional: 77% (77% of float) (307 institutions)
·	Net Inst. Buying: 878.0K shares (+2.40%) (prior quarter to latest quarter)

More From Multex

·Highlights
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Business Summary

eFunds Corporation provides electronic transaction processing, automated teller machine (ATM) outsourcing and decision support and risk management services to financial institutions, retailers, electronic funds transfer networks, e-commerce providers and government agencies. The Company also offers business process outsourcing services to complement the Company's payments business. The Company's services enable clients to reduce their transaction and infrastructure costs, detect potential fraud and enhance their relationships with their customers. eFunds operates two principal businesses, Payment Systems and Services and Government Services.

More from Multex: Expanded Business Description

Financial Summary

EFDS provides electronic transaction processing, ATM outsourcing, and risk management services to financial institutions, retailers, electronic funds networks, and government agencies. For the nine months ended 9/30/02, revenues rose 3% to $411.5 million. Net income rose 9% to $23.7 million. Revenues reflect the acquisition of ATM networks from Hanco, Samsar, Evergreen, and CRI. Net income also reflects decreased employee costs and reduced income tax provisions.

Recent Earnings Announcement
For the 3 months ended 12/31/2002, revenues were 131,644; after tax earnings were 881. (Preliminary; reported in thousands of dollars.)

More from Multex: Significant Developments

Officers

[Insider Trade Data]

	FY2001 Pay

Paul Walsh, 53 Chairman, CEO	--
Thomas Liston CFO	--
Steven Coleman, 43 Sr. VP, Gen. Counsel, Sec.	--
Colleen McKeown Adstedt, 39 Sr. VP of HR and Admin.	$819K
Kathleen Flanagan

Again within NJ the CIO is a former Accenture Employee...This is a clear conflict of interest with reputation of this firm!!

http://www.state.nj.us/it/cio.html

	Judith L. Teller Chief Information Officer PO Box 001 Trenton NJ 08625-0001 Phone: (609) 777-2245 Judith.Teller@gov.state.nj.us
State CIO \| Judith Teller Biography Judith Teller's oversight of the operations of all state government information and technology systems ensures that technology supports and enhances government services while reducing waste and costs. In support of Governor McGreevey's policy agenda, Teller directs an innovative approach to information technology that reduces both the cost of providing governmental services and the constituents' cost of obtaining them while concurrently improving service quality and accessibility for New Jersey's citizens, businesses, local governments, and employees. Prior to joining the McGreevey administration, Teller worked for Accenture, the management and technology services consulting firm, for 27 years, the last 18 of which she was a partner specializing in providing services to state and local governments. Throughout her career, Teller focused on large-scale projects, especially those involving creative and innovative uses of technology. Her clients have included the New York City Board of Elections, the Philadelphia Office of the Mayor, the Fairfax County (VA) Department of Social Services, the New Hampshire Department of Social Services, the Missouri Judiciary, the New York City Board of Education, and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. As a senior manager and new partner at Accenture, Teller spent more than five years in the 1980s working on projects with agencies in New Jersey, leading Accenture's efforts to help the state with the implementation of an unemployment insurance benefit system, a wage reporting system and several systems for the Judiciary. In addition, she served as an advisory partner on the company's work for the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance and the New Jersey Department of Treasury. Teller is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is an active member of the Governor's Budget Efficiency Savings Team (BEST) and is also currently serving on the Education Task Force for Measuring Student Achievement. For more details on Accenture See: http://www.h1bvisasucks.com/H1BDiscussions_issue_accenture.htm

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/20/114513.shtml

High-Tech Industry Fires Americans, Hires Indians

NewsMax.com Wires and NewsMax.com
Thursday, March 20, 2003

Computer giant Sun Microsystems Inc. fired thousands of American high-tech workers to replace them with younger, lower-paid engineers from India, a lawsuit charges.

The legal action will step up the conflict between technology companies and American engineers over the H-1B visa program, which lets companies "temporarily" bring foreign workers into the United States ... whether they are needed or not.

Class-action status is being sought for the lawsuit, filed Monday by Walter Kruz, 52, in California Superior Court in Santa Clara. He worked at Sun from May 2000 until late 2001, when Sun was laying off about 2,500 of its workers in the United States.

The lawsuit says Sun had a bias against Americans and in favor of Indian hires. Sun's Indian-born co-founder, Vinod Khosla, admitted this year on CBS's "60 Minutes" that people from India "are favored over almost anybody else."

"According to the lawsuit, hardly any of those laid off by Sun were people of Indian descent. Instead, the company created a performance evaluation program that required managers to classify a certain percentage of workers as underperformers, the suit alleges. At the same time, workers who had been at the company for a short time were exempted from this evaluation program, ensuring that few H-1B visa holders would be subject to it. As a result, most of those found to be underperfomers were older, American-born workers," the Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

"At the same time, the suit alleges that Sun was applying for permission to bring in about 2,400 foreign workers, mostly from India, to fill technical jobs."

The law says H-1B workers must receive the same pay as U.S. employees, but Kruz's attorney says this requirement is easily evaded.

India's Tech Industry Faces Global Backlash

A few months ago, when unemployed mothers in New Jersey dialed a toll-free number to find out the status of their benefit checks, a call center thousands of miles away based in Bombay, India, answered their calls.

When New Jersey state senator Shirley Turner came to know about it, she saw the irony of it. An angry Turner drafted a bill that barred state contracts from going overseas, and the state senate passed the bill unanimously.

She wanted to ensure that government funds were used to employ people living in the United States, rather than workers in India.

Although the bill was later blocked by the state assembly, it sparked similar moves by four other states: Maryland, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Missouri.

"This is were we need your help to email the NJ Assembly!"

Anti-India IT sentiment isn't restricted to the United States. From Germany, France and Britain to Indonesia and Malaysia, the Indian IT industry, particularly its software professionals, is facing the ire of workers, policy-makers and powerful unions.

Whether it's a case of enacting new laws or plugging holes in old laws, or imposing visa restrictions on Indian IT staff, or even harassment of Indian IT staff in some countries, forces are aiming to curtail Indian IT companies from expanding abroad.

"Our success has led to some resistance ... a kind of a pushback," said Kiran Karnik, president of the country's powerful software lobby, National Association of Software and Services Companies.

There are reasons for the economic and social backlash: IT and other high-tech jobs are migrating from developed economies to less-developed economies such as India, Russia and China. More than a quarter of the Fortune 500 companies have shifted, or are shifting, back office work to India.

3.3 Million U.S. Jobs Shipped to India

In a recent report, the research and consulting firm Forrester Research said that 3.3 million U.S. jobs in the services sector and $136 billion in wages are expected to move to countries like India, Russia, China and the Philippines by 2015. The IT industry is expected to lead the trend.

The report said that like the shift in manufacturing jobs in the last half of the 20th century, the huge cost advantage of these low-wage countries would drive the movement of services jobs.

That's bad news for developed countries, which are dealing with sluggish economies and high unemployment.

"Our formal request to members of Congress at this time is two-fold," said Marcus Courtney president of Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, a group of high-tech workers formed to advocate improved benefits and workplace rights. The group is an affiliate of the union Communications Workers of America.

"One, what is their position on the issue of high-technology jobs moving offshore, and would they support a Congressional investigation. Second is in terms of specific legislative proposals, though we have not come up with one, but it is something we are working on."

But the backlash is bad news for the Indian IT sector, which is still hoping to reach its $80 billion revenue target by 2008 (up from about $12 billion) by selling software and services abroad.

How is India facing the global backlash?

The Ministry of External Affairs hasn't done much yet, except in extreme cases such as a recent incident in Indonesia. There, two Indian software executives were held hostage by the Indonesian army in December.

So Nasscom has risen to the challenge. The IndUS Entrepreneurs, which evangelizes for Indian entrepreneurship and services globally, is also pushing the same agenda.

"The ball has already been set rolling," said Kiran Karnik of Nasscom, "and we are interacting with key decision and policy makers in the United States about the advantages of outsourcing to India that will accrue to the sagging U.S. economy.

"Nasscom will share information on how U.S. industries, especially banks, insurance and other financial institutions have benefited due to increased outsourcing of back office operations to India, over the years.

"U.S. banking and allied sectors are estimated to have saved $8 billion over the last four years by outsourcing to India." Nasscom is also working with Information Technology Association of America and U.S. businesses to draw up strategies to tackle the outsourcing issue.

The body has retained a public relations firm in the United States, Hill and Knowlton, to reach federal and state representatives.

But mostly, India's IT industry is banking on the fact that it still offers good value in software services, especially amid a global recession. The industry hopes that the United States and Europe face the cold economic facts sooner rather than later

A Mainframe-Size Visa Loophole L1 Visa BusinessWeek 3/6/2003

More companies are using L-1 visas to bring in low-wage foreign info-tech workers -- and replace Americans

Senior systems analyst Patricia Fluno was shocked when she found out last summer that she and 11 colleagues in the Lake Mary (Fla.) offices of Siemens (SI ) were being replaced by techies brought in by Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest information-technology (IT) consulting firm. Fluno, 53, couldn't understand how Tata and Siemens could bring Indian workers into the U.S.

After all, in 2001, Congress had specifically banned the displacement of U.S. employees by foreigners brought in under the controversial H-1B visa program, which many employers had tapped to fill vacant jobs in the booming 1990s. Congress also had demanded rules requiring employers to pay H-1B workers prevailing U.S. wages -- and Siemens made no bones about the cost-cutting nature of the layoffs. When Fluno asked one of the replacements about his visa during the two months that she trained him to take her job, Fluno says a Siemens manager told her not to ask such "personal" questions.

Fluno was onto something. In fact, Muralidhar Naidu Kollu, the Tata IT analyst who now sits at Fluno's desk and does her job, didn't have an H-1B at all. Instead, Fluno learned, Tata used a more obscure visa called the L-1, which is designed for intracompany transfers by multinational corporations. Even though Tata's primary business is supplying off-shore IT expertise to U.S. companies, it used the loosely regulated L-1 program to place Kollu and 11 other Indians in Siemens' Florida offices. Reached at Fluno's old phone number, Kollu, who speaks halting English, says he specializes in SAP software, just like Fluno. He declined to discuss his salary, but Fluno says her Siemens supervisors told her he earns just one-third of her $98,000 a year.

FULL COMPLIANCE? "Is my government telling me that if an H-1B visa holder replaces me it's illegal, but if an L-1 replaces me, it's O.K.?" demands Fluno, who has been looking for a permanent job ever since. "If this is a loophole, it needs to be stopped." Tata officials say the company fully complies with the L-1 law and pays the prevailing industry wage to all its U.S.-based employees, although they declined to provide specifics about Kollu or other employees at Siemens. Siemens spokeswoman Paula Davis says her company isn't responsible for Tata's employment practices. "They don't work for us. They work for Tata," she says.

Fluno's experience is just one example of an explosion in the use -- and in some cases, the abuse -- of L-1 visas. With the travails of the high-tech industry and the jump in IT unemployment, fewer U.S. companies can tap the H-1B program these days by saying qualified Americans aren't available. At the same time, many employers looking to slash costs have discovered that they can use firms that hire L-1s to dump high-paid Americans in favor of cheaper workers from abroad.

As a result, many companies are subcontracting thousands of jobs to outsourcing companies such as Tata, Infosys Technologies (INFY ), and Wipro Technologies (WIT ) -- the three largest Indian software servicing companies, which all are using more L-1s. Among those using such IT contractors are Bank of America (BAC ), Dell Computer (DELL ), General Electric (GE ), Merrill Lynch (MER ), and Siemens (SI ).

BACKLASH. Bombay-based Tata now uses L-1s to bring in half of the 5,000 IT workers it has placed at companies in the U.S., says CEO S. Ramadorai. Nearly one-third of Infosys' 3,000 U.S.-based workers hold L-1s, the company says, as do 32% of Wipro's 1,500. Like Tata, Bangalore-based Infosys and Wipro say they follow the letter of the L-1 law.

But they may be violating the spirit of the law. "Is it O.K. to use L-1s for outsourcing to other firms? The answer is no," says State Dept. spokesman Stuart Patt. Tata's outside public-relations firm says that Tata "is in complete compliance with all laws and regulations with respect to H and L visas."

Legal or not, the growing use of L-1s has sparked a backlash. The program has been plagued by accusations that individuals use it to gain illicit entry into the U.S. Complaints from the Siemens workers have led the Justice Dept. to launch investigations. Fluno's case was dismissed on Feb. 11; three others continue. At the same time, the Immigration & Naturalization Service is reviewing the L-1 visa program "to assess whether companies are using the L-1 to circumvent the H-1B program," says an INS official. And Representative John L. Mica (R-Fla.) vows he'll try to amend the L-1 statute if Justice doesn't prosecute in the Siemens case. "It's a back door to cheap labor," he says.

EXPLOITING LOOPHOLES. While many L-1s ease the intracompany transfers they're meant for, outsourcing has triggered a surge in their numbers. New L-1s jumped by 50% from 1998 to 2002, to 58,000, and climbed an additional 10% in the first five months of fiscal 2003, according to State Dept. data. Meanwhile, new H-1B visas plunged by 27% through 2002 and fell 17% so far in fiscal 2003. What's more, L-1s allow employees to remain in the U.S. for up to seven years and can include multiple workers. H-1Bs are issued to individuals, who are limited to six-year stays. There were 384,000 people working in the U.S. on H-1Bs in 2001, the last year available, and at 329,000, nearly as many on L-1s.

Companies like Tata have grabbed U.S. market share in IT consulting in part by exploiting the L-1's loopholes. The private company, which supplies outsourced IT services to client companies from 48 offices in the U.S., saw its business from U.S. companies grow 29%, to more than $500 million, in its latest fiscal year, which ended March, 2002.

Tata says nearly three-quarters of its sales come from supplying IT expertise to an impressive list of blue-chip U.S. clients such as Apple Computer (APPL ), Bank One (ONE ), Boeing (BA ), and Eli Lilly (ELI ). But with half its U.S. labor here on L-1s, Tata's growth might well be smaller if it relied solely on H-1Bs. "Demand is so great that people will massage any visa category," says Jessica Vaughn, senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

Fluno and colleagues, meanwhile, are still looking for IT work (Siemens says it helped five of them find comparable jobs). They hope to start a campaign against L-1 abuse. But with so many major companies already using them, their campaign may be all uphill.

By Brian Grow in Orlando, Fla., with Manjeet Kripalani in Bombay

Contact: Chris McManes
Marketing Communications/Public Relations Coordinator
Phone: +1 202 785 0017, x8356
E-mail: c.mcmanes@ieee.org

Offshore Outsourcing and Labor Importing Put the Squeeze on Jobs in the U.S. High-Tech Industry

WASHINGTON (24 March 2003) — The United States lost 560,000 jobs in the high-tech industry in 2001-02, according to a 19 March report by the American Electronics Association (http://www.aeanet.org/PressRoom/idmk_2002_tech_employment_press.asp). While IEEE-USA commends AeA for its Tech Employment Update, the unanswered question is where these jobs have gone.

“In addition to the downturn in the U.S. economy, we’re worried about the eagerness of American businesses to move high-tech jobs overseas,” IEEE-USA President-Elect John Steadman said. “Congress should take a close look at overseas outsourcing to see what can be done to create and keep high-value, high-tech jobs here in the U.S.”

During roughly the same time period (FY ’01 and ’02) our nation lost more than half-a-million high-tech jobs — both blue collar and professional — 799,700 new or renewal H-1B visas were issued. And according to a 6 March article in Business Week, another 329,000 people were working in the U.S. on L-1 visas in 2001, many in the high-tech sector.

In “A Mainframe-Size Visa Loophole,” Business Week noted that the L-1 visa is intended for “intracompany transfers by multinational corporations,” but “many employers looking to slash costs have discovered that they can use [outsourcing] firms that hire L-1s to dump high-paid Americans in favor of cheaper workers from abroad.” Read on at http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/mar2003/ca2003036_6655.htm.

The unemployment rate for electrical and electronics engineers (EEs) has more than tripled since 2000, going from 1.3 percent to 4.2 percent last year. For computer scientists, the jobless rate jumped from two percent to five percent.

“We have thousands of unemployed engineers, computer scientists and recent college graduates who are having difficulty finding employment because many of the jobs are taken by cheaper, foreign labor,” Steadman said. “With jobs disappearing and historically high levels of unemployment among high-tech professionals, IEEE-USA asks why we continue importing thousands of new workers through the H-1B and L-1 visa programs.

“We should put our own people to work before sending any more good jobs to other countries.”

Moreover, IEEE-USA President Jim Leonard, in a 10 March letter, asked every member of Congress to limit the number of H-1B visas available for admission to the U.S., and ensure that more of the H-1B fee revenue is used to address the specialized instructional needs of unemployed engineers, scientists and other high-tech professionals. The money currently goes more to entry-level training for lower-skilled workers.

Leonard further urges Congress to let the current H-1B visa cap of 195,000 drop back to the historical level of 65,000, which will happen on 1 October with no further congressional action.

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers created in 1973 to promote the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 235,000 electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. For more information, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org.

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	http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5967_437737,001600060001.htm Indian American seeks New Jersey Senate seat Indo-Asian News Service Washington, October 29 Upendra Chivukula, one of the few Indian Americans to hold an elected office, is now seeking a seat in the New Jersey Senate. A Democratic elected representative in the state assembly and a long-time resident of Franklin Township, the Chennai-educated Chivukula is seeking a seat from the 17th District. The mid-term poll will be held on November 4. Chivukula, 52, was educated at the Vivekananda College in Chennai and then went to an engineering college in the same city before coming to the U.S. where he took a masters degree in engineering from the City University of New York. He has served in the New Jersey Assembly since 2002. He has worked with Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, who is the founder chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, from the time the Caucus was formed. He is married to Dayci Chivukula and they have two children -- a son, Suraj, and a daughter, Damianty. The election will signal whether New Jersey's voters are angry enough about Democrat Governor James E. McGreevey's tax increases and political missteps to throw the Democrats out of power, as contended by the Republicans. At present the Senate is split 20-20 between Democrats and Republicans, and only a handful of races are competitive enough to swing the upper house. Chivukula is running a close race along with seven other contenders. A management consultant by profession, Chivukula is described by friends as a highly motivated "do it now" person whose actions have benefited every community in which he has lived. He is director, marketing, at Sira Tech International, Inc., Somerset, New Jersey. He has co-authored six books. Chivukula has extensive technical and business experience working at AT&T Bell Laboratories where he implemented supplier management practices. The issues and proposals on which he is seeking the state Senate seat are: Property taxes: "Our state continues to have the highest property tax dependence among all te states. I support a constitutional convention to study the problem. I am also open to other ways of findingsolutions." Jobs: "New Jersey is suffering like the rest of the nation in a non-job-growth economy. I will work to protect our existing small businesses and attract additional high-tech businesses to our state." Auto insurance: "New Jersey needs a real, no-nonsense reform to bring down our 'highest in the nation' auto insurance rates. I will fight to attract more insurance companies to New Jersey and to get uninsured drivers off our roads."

	This NJ Lawmaker Stalls
	NJ Bill to Stop Outsourcing Jobs to India!!
	http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/Members/chivukula.asp