Bracing for the Blow

NY Times ^ | 12/26/03 | Bob Herbert

[Texas_Dawg]

I.B.M. has sent a holiday chill through its American employees with its plans to ship thousands of high-paying white-collar jobs overseas to lower-paid foreign workers.

"People are upset and angry," said Arnie Marchetti, a 37-year-old computer technician at I.B.M.'s Southbury, Conn., office whose wife gave birth to their first child in August.

The company has not made any announcements, and the employees do not know who will be affected, or when. The uncertainty about whose jobs may be sent to India or China, the two main countries in the current plans, has raised workers' anxiety in some cases to an excruciating level.

"I understand that this is a lightning rod issue in the industry," an I.B.M. spokesman told me this week. "It's a lightning rod issue to people in our company, I suppose. But I don't think anybody expects us to issue blanket statements to the work force about projections."

Referring to employees who may be affected by the plans, he said, "We deal with them as they need to know."

"Offshoring" and "outsourcing" are two of the favored euphemisms for shipping work overseas. I.B.M. prefers the term "global sourcing." Whatever you call it, the expansion of this practice from manufacturing to the higher-paying technical and white-collar levels is the latest big threat to employment in the U.S.

Years ago, when concern was being expressed about the shipment of factory jobs to places with slave wages, hideous working conditions and even prison labor, proponents said there was nothing to worry about. Exporting labor-intensive jobs would make U.S. companies more competitive, leading to increased growth and employment, and higher living standards. They advised U.S. workers to adjust, to become better educated and skillful enough to thrive in a new world of employment, where technology and the ability to process information were crucial components.

Well, the workers whose jobs are now threatened at I.B.M. and similar companies across the U.S. are well educated and absolute whizzes at processing information. But they are nevertheless in danger of following the well-trodden path of their factory brethren to lower-wage work, or the unemployment line.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that I.B.M. had told its managers to plan on moving as many as 4,730 jobs from the U.S. The I.B.M. spokesman told me he was sure that figure was too high, but added that no one had complained to The Journal about the number. He said he didn't know how many American jobs would be lost.

I.B.M. officials are skittish to the point of paranoia on this matter, which has powerful social and political implications. Pulling the plug on factory workers is one thing. A frontal assault on the livelihood of solidly middle-class Americans — some of whom may be required to train the foreign workers who will replace them — is something else.

James Sciales was the first of the company spokesmen to respond to my inquiries this week. He was reluctant to even tell me his name and nervously refused to answer any questions. Another spokesman was willing to talk but asked that I not refer to him by name.

In a recorded conference call reported by The Times last summer, a pair of I.B.M. officials told colleagues around the world that the company needed to accelerate its efforts to move white-collar jobs overseas. They acknowledged the danger of a political backlash, but said it was essential to step up the practice.

"Our competitors are doing it and we have to do it," said Tom Lynch, I.B.M.'s director for global employee relations.

The outsourcing of good jobs has been under way for years, and there is no dispute that the practice is speeding up. "Anything that is not nailed to the floor is being considered for outsourcing," said Thea Lee, the chief international economist for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Most of the millions of white-collar workers who could be affected by this phenomenon over the next several years are clueless as to what they can do about it. They do not have organized representation in the workplace. And government policies overwhelmingly favor the corporations. Like the employees at I.B.M. whose holiday cheer has been dampened by uncertainty, these hard-working men and women and their families have little protection against the powerful forces of the global economy.

[Texas_Dawg]

Hedgetrimmer has to be a leftist college kid. There's simply no other explanation for his immature paranoia and hatred of capitalism. All his arguments are identical to the spoiled brat, Range Rover hippie crowd that hates Starbucks and the WTO and "evil CEOs", etc.

nmh, I've never once met a successful, conservative, businessman (and I know thousands), who has this kind of paranoia. On the other hand, I've met dozens (and seen hundreds more) of leftist freaks who hate the WTO. I'm sure there are some on the FRinge right who live in bunkers in Idaho somewhere that think the WTO has tapped their home phone line and is coming to kill them, as hedgetrimmer does, but these people are by no means "conservatives" and they sure as hell aren't successful, happy, prosperous people.

[hedgetrimmer]

You know I am quoting directly from the WTO charter. You are driveling and name calling.

Why don't you debate the charter? Your credibility is nonexistant.

[Texas_Dawg]

You know I am quoting directly from the WTO charter. You are driveling and name calling. Why don't you debate the charter? Your credibility is nonexistant.

Because you have not once shown a case where the WTO has authority over any decision the US makes. Influence? Sure. No more than a decision by any country outside the WTO does. But not one shred of authority in what we choose to do. The problem here, hedgetrimmer, is that the United States government, and the representatives elected to it, have chosen to participate in the WTO because the overwhelming majority of the business community (of which you clearly are not) like the WTO and agree with its goals. You can't dispute that so you just spout your paranoia as nmh has accurately pointed out.

[hedgetrimmer]

Here's another problem with the WTO, and shows how there is no citizen representation in that body:

Appendix 4: Expert Review Groups
3. Citizens of parties to the dispute shall not serve on an expert review group

So someone from America is not even allowed to participate in expert reviews if the case has to do with Americans?

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

"The US was basically the creator of the WTO"

Well, the US basically started the UN, the organization that refused join with us in getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Who started what and for whatever good intentions no longer seems to be for the good of all nations, only some.
It seems that we can be forced to answer to a legal body outside of our country, and that does not sound like anything the Founding Fathers wanted.
As leaders of the free world, we really were not in need of the WTO. It was meant to help smaller countries have a better chance in the world market.
The US Constitution grants to Congress the power to regulate Commerce, not to some international group. The WTO can have little to offer us, only hinder us.

[hedgetrimmer]

I have shown plenty of cases.

Debate the charter stop name calling. You are making a lot of incorrect assumptions about the posters on this forum.

Can the WTO put somebody in jail? Maybe not now. But their parent organization, the UN is surely lobbying for that power with the institution of the international criminal court.

[hedgetrimmer]

The fifth and final section in the enforcement chapter of the TRIPS Agreement deals with criminal procedures. According to Article 61, provision must be made for these to be applied at least in cases of wilful trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy on a commercial scale. The Agreement leaves it to Members to decide whether to provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied in other cases of infringement of intellectual property rights, in particular where they are committed wilfully and on a commercial scale.

Sanctions must include imprisonment and/or monetary fines sufficient to provide a deterrent, consistent with the level of penalties applied for crimes of a corresponding gravity. Criminal remedies in appropriate cases must also include seizure, forfeiture and destruction of the infringing goods and of materials and instruments used to produce them.

Here it is in the WTO Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS agreement. They are recommending criminal remedies including seizure, forfeiture and destruction of goods. You say they have no authority? Then how did this claus get into a benign WTO agreement that has no teeth?

This is all from the WTO website for anyone interesting in learning the truth about this organization.

[Texas_Dawg]

Debate the charter stop name calling.

Name-calling? Do you know who the most active opponents of the WTO are? Labor unions, radical environmentalists, 3rd world totalitarian kleptocracies, communists, Hollywood activists, and on and on and on. Why would I take what you say seriously, hedgetrimmer? If the janitor of my building starts ranting about the WTO tomorrow, I will laugh and move on, but I won't be surprised. If a successful businessman I happen to meet starts ranting about it, I might listen. But that has never ever happened in real life, so why in the world would I not just think you are some leftist college kid DU troll? I have every reason in the world to think you are. By no means do I think you are some patriot because I know thousands of true conservatives including a good friend of mine who is the US Ambassador to the World Bank, and these people are 1,000 times the patriots and conservatives you are, but they also aren't FRinge isolationist WorldNetDaily style loons. You have given me no reason to take what you say seriously.

[hedgetrimmer]

You cannot debate the charter because it is indefensible with respect to American liberty.

[Texas_Dawg]

You cannot debate the charter because it is indefensible with respect to American liberty.

Sure I can. I easily explained the truth behind several of your lies about the WTO, but I quit awhile back because you are going to see what you want. Just curious, how old are you? What do you do for a living? Just for the sake of disclosure here. If you don't want to answer those (I can understand why you don't though b/c I know your crowd), then please show me one mainstream American conservative, that both of us would have respect for, in general, who hates the WTO and wishes to see an immediate withdrawal from it by the US (as you do). Surely, if your point is logical and conservative, you will have a mainstream American conservative in agreement with you on this.

[hedgetrimmer]

Some of the WTO publications are pretty scarey. Here's one I didn't know about:

The official opening of the Advisory Centre for WTO Law today is a (small) historic moment in its own right. But it is also part of a larger development: a growth of the judicial settlement of disputes reflected in a growth in the number of international judicial institutions.

Many new international rules, laid down in multilateral agreements, have been created over the last two decades. Many new international courts and tribunals have been instituted with a view to facilitating the application and enforcement of those rules. I will just mention the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the various War Crimes Tribunals, for the former Yugoslavia and Central Africa, and the International Criminal Court. The Panels and Appellate Body of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Understanding are part of that development, and probably the most prolific part, with some 240 complaints lodged and some 56 final judgments rendered in six years.

It is, therefore, fitting that, today, the official opening of the Advisory Centre for WTO Law marks the start of a true legal aid centre on an international scale. Individuals appearing as defendants before War Crimes Tribunals have always been able to call upon pro bono legal aid. The International Court of Justice has a small fund out of which costs of legal assistance can be paid for countries who need such help. But today marks the first time a true legal aid centre has been established within the international legal system, with a view to combating the unequal possibilities of access to international justice as between States. States have banded together and have created a multilateral treaty supported by a substantial guarantee fund, which makes subsidization and the provision of high quality legal aid to States which need such help possible.

The seeds of this system can already be found in the DSU. Article 27, paragraph 2, provides for “additional legal advice and assistance” (additional, that is over and above the normal assistance to all Members) “in respect of dispute settlement to developing country Members”. The Secretariat shall accordingly make available “a qualified legal expert from the WTO technical cooperation services” to any developing country. However, such assistance could not go beyond a certain point because the Secretariat had to preserve its impartiality, according to this provision. It was inconceivable that one part of the Secretariat would help a developing country litigate a case, whilst another part of the Secretariat would help the Panel write the report on that case.

--SPEECHES — DG MIKE MOORE

The WTO is giving themselves the right to litigate for underdeveloped countries in international court. How long do you think it will be before the WTO starts calling the United States a rogue country if we do not appear before their courts?

[hedgetrimmer]

What lies my dear Texas_dawg?

[Texas_Dawg]

Hedgetrimmer and his fellow "conservative" American "patriots":

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Thanks for the info that you have been posting here.

[hedgetrimmer]

I wonder whose side Robert Zoelick is on?

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick says Congress must act quickly to bring U.S. tax policies into compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and avoid retaliatory sanctions from the European Union (EU).

Zoellick reported that Pascal Lamy, the European Commissioner for Trade, "has stated publicly that his focus is on U.S. compliance with the WTO ruling, and that he would prefer to avoid retaliation if possible." He quoted Lamy as saying: "The name of the game is not retaliation; the name of the game is compliance."

The U.S. official warned, however, that unless the EU sees movement towards "meaningful revisions" of the U.S. tax code, it could move forward with stiff retaliatory sanctions against U.S. exports.

"Any retaliation of that magnitude against U.S. exports would be extremely damaging to American workers, farmers, and businesses," he warned the Senators.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Well, I do not belong to any wacko radical environmentalist group that showed up at the WTO in Seattle so they could be on television.

OTOH, Bill Clinton is an avowed free trader, just like Texas_Dawg:


CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS
RECENT WTO MEETING UNDERSCORES TRADE DEFICIT
by William R. Hawkins

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/November2003/1103CRHawkins.html
THE WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico, and their ultimate collapse were similar to what happened in Seattle in 1999, when President Bill Clinton, an avowed “free trader,” walked out when faced with demands even he could not stomach.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

" I wonder whose side Robert Zoelick is on? "

Last time I tried to figure him out, he was busy reassuring the concerned Indian population that they had nothing to worry about, he would make certain that they all had a continuing flow of s/w, call center, tech support and IT work from the US. I knew then whose Representative he was (clearly not for the vast majority of US citizens).
The only other thing I learned about him is that according to his website, he serves at the pleasure of the President (or words to that effect).

[Texas_Dawg]

Bill Clinton is an avowed free trader

One of his conservative triangulations such as his signing of the defense of marriage act, welfare reform, and being pro death penalty. He's a smart politician and knows the points where conservatives just make much more sense. Kind of funny that even Bill Clinton is to the right of you and your anti-WTO friends, economically. Don't worry, I know who you and hedgetrimmer are. Just left-wing unemployed college kids. No big deal. It's cool to be leftist anti-American freaks on your campus, I'm sure.

[hedgetrimmer]

Don't worry, I know who you and hedgetrimmer are

Ha ha.

[hedgetrimmer]

"it is a very big transfer of power"
***

It’s doubtful that the Senate would have approved this dramatic transfer of national sovereignty had it been proposed in a formal treaty. Additionally, the Republican-led Congress that acquired power in January 1995 included scores of freshmen skeptical of international bodies like the WTO. The drive to entangle our nation in the WTO may have been doomed but for the willingness of Republican House leader Newt Gingrich to cooperate with like-minded Democratic internationalists in convening a special lame-duck session of Congress to approve the agreement.

To his credit, Gingrich candidly described the consequences of congressional approval of the WTO. "[W]e need to be honest about the fact that we are transferring from the United States, at a practical level, significant authority to a new organization. This is a transformational moment," admitted Gingrich during congressional hearings in late 1994. "I would feel better if the people who favor this would just be honest about the scale of change." Comparing the WTO agreement with the 1991 Maastricht treaty, which created the European Union, Gingrich predicted that "twenty years from now we will look back on this as a very important defining moment. This is not just another trade agreement. This is adopting something which twice, once in the 1940s and once in the 1950s, the U.S. Congress rejected. I am not even saying we should reject it; I, in fact, lean toward it. But I think we have to be very careful, because it is a very big transfer of power."

The power ceded by Congress to the WTO placed our nation’s economic future in the hands of unelected globalist bureaucrats.

Tje real enemies are the architects of the emerging, centrally directed global economy.
--William Norman Grigg