[plug] gall and good news

[Bret Busby]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Alex Polglaze wrote:

> 
> How's this for gall. These are extracts from and outsourcing newsletter that I 
> receive. If Seattle bans outsourcing, then perhaps computer users worldwide 
> should ban outsourcing their operating systems. One can only hope.
> 
> Second article mentions another Linux deployment.
> 
> Alex
> 
> Seattle to Ban Outsourcing to India	Top
> Summary
> Furious about Washington State contractors shipping tech jobs to India and other 
> countries, two lawmakers in Seattle have announced that they will bring a 
> legislation to ban outsourcing. Republican Zack Hudgins, a Democrat from Tukwila 
> and a former Amazon.com employee, and Sandra Romero, a Democrat from Olympia, 
> said that they will introduce the legislation to prevent State government 
> contracts from being awarded to companies that send jobs to other countries.
> 

This issue of oustourcing overseas, is not as simple, as you may argue. 
It has many aspects and considerations.

One particular consideration and aspect, is the issue of local 
employment and conditions. A good example is the recent issue in the 
news, of Telecom/IBM intending to cancel round 450 Australian IT jobs, 
and instead outsource them to India. Already, callcentres to service 
Australia, have gone offshore, in outsourcing overseas. A good example 
of one particular such call centre, is the Amway call centre, where all 
calls for Australia, are now routed to New Zealand. I understand that 
other companies that operate in Australia, have their call centres 
operating overseas, using cheap labour.

Now, there are at least two different issues with outsourcing overseas 
from that aspect; one is the exploitation of cheap labour (why pay 
reasonable labour rates, when you can exploit cheap, third-world labour 
- what is wrong with slavery?), and one example of that, oustide the 
computing world, is the (in)famous Nike exploitation - paying labourers 
in Asia $10 a week, for producing their track shoes that they sold for 
$300 a pair (that example is from a few years ago). If the overseas 
workers were guarnteed to be paid the same rates as payable in 
whatever locality from which the outsourcing overseas was done, perhaps, 
the outsourcing overseas, would not be so evil.

Another aspect, is the protection of local jobs. Would you want to lose 
your job, or, if a self-employed consultant, your business, to an 
overseas enterprise, that undercuts your rates by up to 90%? In that, I 
am reminded of what happened in New Zealand a few (or several) years 
ago, when industrial awards were abolished, and replaced by individual 
work contracts. What that meant, in NZ, was that job security was thrown 
out the window, and, if you were currently working for (as an example) 
$10 an hour, and, someone walked in off the street, and offered to do 
your job, for $7 an hour, you could be immediately out on the street, 
looking for work, and the person off the street, working in your job, 
until someone else offered to your employer, to work for less than that 
person was paid.

One casulaty in the changes to the way employment operated in NZ, as an 
exmaple, was the issue of the national parks chief rangers. In one go, 
seven chief rangers of national parks in New Zealand, were all 
"retrenched", and offered their jobs back, at considerably reduced rates 
of pay. And, they were not "fresh university graduate with no live 
experience" kind of people - they were generally people who had worked 
for national parks, sice leaving school, and have devoted their working 
lives (and, personal lives - no 9-5 job, that), to working in the 
national parks, so, alot of experience and knowledge was lost, when 
the government did that to the national parks.

I personally object to oustourcing overseas, especially in IT, and, 
especially when people exist locally, with the appropriate skills, 
experience and qualifications. And, especially so, when the IT industry 
in Australia, is suffering a significant downturn, with, from what I 
have been advised, poor employment prospects for IT graduates, 
especially in Perth.

However, I believe that it is wrong to legislate to prevent outsourcing 
overseas, as I equally believe it is wrong to legislate to force 
government departments to use open source software. I believe that both 
should be done by incentives, and, using merit, not by the force of law.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................