Outsourcing hits US techies hard

Times of India ^ | MAY 26, 2003 | CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

[Lessismore]

WASHINGTON: On a recent April afternoon in Silicon Valley, moments after he was told he had been laid off from his computer programming job at a Bank of America training centre, Kevin Flanagan stepped into the parking lot and shot himself dead.

Some of America's technology workers, who like Flanagan have also had to collect pink slips over the last several months, think they know why Flanagan took his life: Bank of America not only outsourced his job to India, but forced him to train Indian workers to do the job he had to give up.

In the weeks since his death, the techies have used the incident as fuel to fire a campaign against outsourcing to India, an issue that now seems poised to become a major sticking point between the two countries. Several US states are already considering legislation to ban or limit outsourcing.

Bank of America is one of several major US corporations – General Electric, Microsoft, Intel are among others - under scrutiny for outsourcing jobs to India. The Bank created what is called a "Global Delivery centre" in 2000 to identify projects that could be sent offshore.

Since then it has signed agreements with Infosys and Tata Consulting Services (TCS) to provide solutions and services.

In an e-mail exchange with this correspondent, Kevin's father Tom Flanagan said "a significant reason for which my son took his life was indeed as a result of his job being outsourced."

"Did he blame India for his job loss? No. He blamed the "system." He couldn't understand why Americans are losing jobs. Rather I should say he understood it economically, but not emotionally," Flanagan said.

Bank officials, who did not return calls relating to Flanagan's death, have said in the past that the deal with Indian companies would effect no more than 5 per cent of the bank's 21,000 employees, or about 1,100 jobs, in its technology and operations division.

According to some surveys, the US has lost at least 800,000 jobs in the past year and some 3.3 million jobs will move overseas over the next few years because of outsourcing, mostly to India.

The Bank has also acknowledged that it had asked local workers to train foreigners because such knowledge transfer was essential. According to Tom Flanagan, his son was "totally disgusted" with the fact that he and his fellow-workers had to train foreigners to do his job so they could take over. "That sir is a travesty," he said in one e-mail.

US tech workers are challenging the corporate world's claim that it is outsourcing work to improve bottomlines and efficiency. Some analysts have also pointed out that US corporations were being forced to tighten up by the same people who are moaning about outsourcing, and who, heavily invested in the stock market, demand better performance.

But on one website that discussed the Flanagan case, a tech worker pointed out that data processing consumed only a small per cent of revenues and was hardly a drain on the Bank's profit.

"(It is) a prosperous bank which has let greed trump any sense of patriotism or social responsibility," he fumed.

[Pukin Dog]

Why dont any of you answer the question at the end of post 1121? Was it too tough? Or is it to just be ignored because you folks dont like it?

I see no need to respond to anything else until or unless one of you can address that simple question. General Welfare does NOT mean national prosperity. It means equal opportunity.

I know you and others do not believe that this is what we have, but who cares? There is much more to suggest that it is so, then that it is not so. That is my last response until one of you addresses my question; regardless of whatever new invectives you direct my way. See ya.

[Bush2000]

If protecting American industry, America's standard of living, America's future, America's very military security doesn't come under "promoting the general welfare", then what pray tell does ?

Government can only help businesses become competitive by providing subsidies or cutting taxes. Beyond that, it has no impact on our competitiveness.

Historically, free trade has been the mantra of the dominant exporting power because it served its interests. There is nothing the least bit sacred about it. If it does not serve your interests, there is no reason to cling to it like it was gospel. The end to be served is national prosperity a point you are incapable of comprehending.

If you don't have free trade, you have tariffs. You and I pay more for goods and services and receive less. That is equally dangerous to national prosperity. And don't bother even trying to trot out the "well, then domestic markets would be created and preserved by protectionist tariffs". For example, some of those markets (ie. automobiles) are themselves dependent on foreign resources (ie. oil) that either aren't available or aren't being produced in sufficient quantities. Free trade allows us to exchange our resources (ie. technology) for those of other countries (ie. Saudi Arabia). So, in the absence of free trade, national security is severely challenged. Anti-free traders want to pretend that all markets occur in a vacuum. Not true. Markets are related.

Free trade vs tariffs has always been debated in terms of how it served that end. So it has always been throughout American history because We the People have always insisted that that we make the rules, not selfish, narrow capital interests

You're basically arguing that mediocre Americans who have been reduced to Pavlovian button-pushers over the past 50 years should be carried along by protectionist measures. That sounds remarkably close to Communist theology. It didn't work in the Soviet Union, it doesn't work in North Korea, and it won't work in the future. Embrace the reality of your own obsolescence. Work to change it.

[Bush2000]

It's difficult for many people who were conditioned to think that they had a right to guaranteed employment to now find that they can be replaced by a batch file. But it's a fact of life. It's time to move on. Improve. Adapt. Change. You'd think that this would be self-evident to most of these people. But it's not: They confuse patriotism with a guaranteed-jobs program.

[oceanview]

Your last two posts indicate that you really don't have any idea about the work being offshored, these are not "button pushers" or people replaced by a "batch file".

[Texaggie79]

Are you intellectually capable of understanding that 40 years ago a non college educated worker in a manufacturing job could buy a house, send a kid to college, go away on vacation, have health insurance and retire on a pension all on one paycheck ?

My uncle never went to college and does far more than that simply driving a truck for a living. The jobs are out there. Hard work will outclass education in all labor intensive jobs and America still has plenty of them.

[Pukin Dog]

Sorry, I dont know what a batch file is. I've been using a computer for only 6-7 weeks. I'm learning HTML in order to reply to posts on this web site.

Now, as for your point; you are so right.

This is why I am concluding that I have wasted a lot of time in replying to so many posts. There is little that can be said that will change their reality; I should have known that.

I can guess it must be terrifying for them, because their attitude wont allow them to see the forest from the trees. To them, the sky is really falling, and they will act accordingly.

They see nothing strange about calling someone like me un-american, after the career I just completed, doing the things that I have done. All that matters, is that I dont agree with them. Someone once told me that anyone can become a socialist; and I did not agree with him. I may have been mistaken.

[RogueIsland]

The cowards way out by taking ones own life instead of adapt, adjust and overcome your setbacks.

I hope you never have a loved one who is suffering from depression severe enough to want to take his or her own life. The job loss was almost certainly just a trigger event for this poor man. Severe depression is not the same as cowardice, and I hope you and Lurker never have the misfortune of learning that the hard way.

Perhaps you have to have dealt with a loved one who suffers from acute bouts of depression to fully appreciate what it can do to a person.

[bvw]

Someone once told me that anyone can become a idiot; and I did not agree with him. I *was* mistaken.

We don't need a Navy anymore, Pukin. The Chinese have offered to rent us theirs. In five years.

[Tokhtamish]

Folks who poo-poo this issue will be the first to shriek when Hillary is elected president in 2008, with the assertion "I can't imagine why anyone would vote for her". All these displaced workers will be first in line at the polling places if the current trends continue.

That is the game plan, it appears. As I pointed out earlier, most of today's religious conservatives who hate Hillary now, are the grandchildren of New Deal Democrats who understood that "promoting the general welfare" means defending American prosperity. If present trends continue, they will have to hold their noses and vote for her in basic socioeconomic self-defense.

Never forget how politically vulnerable the free traitors are. Even in the context of a roaring economy, in which every editorial column of every major publication supported NAFTA it barely passed. Looking at the head of steam building up on this board, the GOP candidate of 2008 who champions economic nationalism will be the only one to have a chance at victory.

How strong will the free traitor be when 10 years from now Europe has a higher standard of living than deindustrialized America ?

[Pukin Dog]

I'll take that as a thank you for my service in defending your right to make silly statements.

You are welcome.

[Tokhtamish]

It has nothing whatsoever to do with obsolescence.

There is practically no knowledge job that cannot be done much cheaper by an Indian or Chinese. The Indian programmer does absolutely nothing different from the Silicon Valley programmer. He just does it much cheaper. And the Chinese manufacturer with an inexhaustible supply of cheap labor, owned by the Chinese military operating in a protected, subsidized environment, financed by bank loans which are simply written off is under no profit margin pressure. He can simply export America to death. Pukin Dog is simply the beneficiary of a lucky historical accident, that the airline industry training facilities have always been the USNAF and the USAF. India and China do not have huge, technically sophisticated air forces. And besides, pilot skills are heavily regulated by the FAA so airlines cannot simply outsource pilots willy nilly. Anything that can be done at a desk, however, Chinese or Indians can do.

[PiP PiP Cherrio]

I've been axed from an IT company while I was making a nice paycheck. But, you know what? I said screw the company and went out and found new employment in less than a week... Yeah, it sucked losing that job. It even sucked more that I lost the job out to the managers drinking buddy. Pity the fool who wallows in their misery to the grave. It is life, accept it, deal with it and move on.

[bvw]

It's not silly at all. In five years we won't have the technological skills or industrial base to support a Navy at this rate.

That is, except for the near-socialist small-circle "conglomerated" companies that exist only to suck at the G-Mints tit. And they'll be contracting to China or India for the labor and parts. But you'd like that, being the gold-bricking double-dipper your are.

One fascist socialist knows another and likes the smell of his thunder bags.

[Billy_bob_bob]

You have just expressed my greatest fear. If the economy does not start to improve, and soon, we will all end up with "F.D.R. II", whoever may aspire to fill those shoes. Then we will REALLY find ourselves moving from the frying pan and into the fire. Those who pooh-pooh the concerns of the unemployed will find themselves on the receiving end of the wrath of the unemployed when they decide to riot at the polls.

For a wealth of useful info on how F.D.R. made the Depression about three times worse than it needed to be, check out the essay "Great Myths of the Great Depression" by Lawrence W. Reed, published by the Mackinac center for public policy. That essay is a real eye-opener, to say the least.

[oceanview]

when was that? many of my friends who have lost (or will soon lose) their IT jobs, will likely never be able to get another one. We are talking about "en masse" elimination of IT jobs from these companies. Read some of the posts on this thread from people who work in industry, some other threads running on FR with articles about what is happening in the financial service and health insurance industries, We are not talking about the natural process of job loss/rehires that is a normal dynamic of any economy.

[oceanview]

and Hillary is FDR II, and Eleanor, all in one neat little package that the media loves.

[PiP PiP Cherrio]

this was back in '99. I've decided to work in an area that is Internet related, but not directly working for an IT hosed, I meant house. I'd rather strike out on my own and live by the sword and die by the sword. Even if it means working for a piece of sht P/T time while in the infant stages.

[Bush2000]

Your last two posts indicate that you really don't have any idea about the work being offshored, these are not "button pushers" or people replaced by a "batch file".

Not true. I'm well aware that both manufacturing and engineering functions are moving offshore. The posts that I was referring to dealt with the case of a union guy who was being paid $18/hour for turning a wrench.

[oceanview]

do you want anyone to be middle class, inside the United States that is?

[Bush2000]

It has nothing whatsoever to do with obsolescence.Of course it does...

Anything that can be done at a desk, however, Chinese or Indians can do.

If you are on an equal footing with engineers from countries like China and India, you simply don't have sufficient technological advantages to warrant your existence -- thus causing your obsolescence. What makes you valuable are the things that they can't or won't do yet. Cheap technology has narrowed the gap substantially. Obsolescence is a harsh 2x4 in the face -- and most people simply can't accept it.