Amid the coming election and the controversy in the economy over job creators and job killers, alas a bipartisan bill aimed to curtail the massive push of U.S. jobs overseas has hit the House floor. Introduced last week by House Representatives Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) and David McKinley (R-W.Va.), the long-anticipated pro-jobs legislation would punish U.S. corporations that continue to outsource jobs to offshore call centers making them ineligible for federal government grants and guaranteed loans.

The House bill is supported by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which claims thousands of U.S. customer service representatives have been out of work. The union represents 700,000 workers, including 150,000 customer service reps.

According to the proposed bill, call center customer service representatives working overseas would also need to disclose their locations upon request and would have to offer callers the option of being transferred to a U.S. call center.

Ron Collins, CWA’s chief of staff, said that Americans have been losing decent-paying call-center jobs so that large corporations can save on labor costs. Despite the country being riddled with unemployment, Fortune 500 job creators like Apple, GE, IBM, and AT&T continue to shamelessly export American jobs overseas.

According to Plunkett’s Outsourcing & Offshoring Industry Almanac 2010, offshoring was a $500 billion global industry in 2009. And, call centers are one in 61 distinct industry groups participating in this growing corporate scheme for cheaper labor.

To grasp why some of the country’s largest job creators have become behemoth job killers repositioning jobs overseas, you need to understand “ultra capitalism.” In the scheme of things, the business move maximizes the scale of economy and increases shareholder’s profits in seismic proportions. For every American white-collar customer service position traded to a call center in India or the Philippines, the dramatic reduction in the labor rate can easily cause thousands of dollars to be saved on payroll and employment taxes. Plus, it allows a U.S. employer to skirt labor law compliance and to strip health care, unemployment, and pension plan benefits.

As a sequel to union-busting, offshoring is likely to perpetuate the high unemployment rate. While union busting simplifies the task for corporations to fire American workers, shipping jobs overseas allows corporations to pay much lower wages. But if passed, the bill will strong-arm corporations to remain as a U.S. job creators rather than job killers. Hopefully, it can also help bring much-needed American jobs back home, which would be a good step to reduce debt and create more domestic jobs.

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21 Comments

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  5. Damaris says:

    Wow I can’t believe these corporations have been getting away with this for so long…lets pass this bill and keep Americans employed! Thank you for such great information.

    • admin says:

      Thank you, and you are right to support this “pro-jobs” bill. In 2009 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded corporations, including those that got billions in government bailout money, offshore jobs to cut their tax bills. Plunkett’s Outsourcing & Offshoring Industry Almanac also estimated that in 2009, offshoring was a $500 billion global industry, and 2 years later, it has only grown causing even more American to lose jobs. This further deepens the U.S. debt epidemic and it needs to stop

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  12. Billy M says:

    The big problem is that a lot of US jobs went overseas already due to NAFTA and those jobs aren’t coming back. While I don’t want to see any more American jobs go overseas, what can be done about bringing jobs back to America?

    • admin says:

      Passing this House bill among other pro-jobs bill would be one of the positive steps. But, more important than sanctioning job killers is ending the loopholes that allow some of the largest U.S. corporations to use overseas tax havens to avoid paying their share in taxes. These tax havens make it insanely lucrative for U.S. employers to offshore jobs. Finally, U.S. job creators should be rewarded with greater tax breaks and other incentives, such as more affordable health care costs.

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  14. Chris Romans says:

    While I am not exactly a “patriotic” person by any means, and as such do not think it is vital to keep jobs within the country; I do think that the exploitation of workers overseas has gone on long enough that a bill of this nature should be supported even if only for humanitarian reasons. Honestly, these major corporations pay foreign workers cents on the dollar that American counterparts would make. That is the ultimate crime as far as I see it. When considering the world economy, just imagine how much better other companies could operate if foreigners could be paid a decent living and be able to by things they want, as opposed to just things they really need.

    Of course, considering the current recession in the United States, bringing back some jobs here would be an excellent idea. I know several people who have been having trouble getting back to work, and a job like this would be great for a long term position or one just as a placeholder until something better comes along. I look forward to seeing how this “pro-jobs” bill works out in the long run.

  15. Jeff Kline says:

    I can only imagine what is going through the minds of these big business guys now that is sort of legislation is being discussed in the House of Representatives. Honestly, I can only imagine the sleazy things going on behind the scenes. I have this overwhelming sense that the government and big business guys collaborate way too much, and a bill like this would probably not pass; at least not with a lot of add ons the public will never hear about. For all we know, attached to this bill could be a million dollar payout to each company that would be negatively effected. Of course, maybe that is a little ridiculous, but the point is there!

    Oh, and don’t you think the big companies will somehow find a loophole in this legislation even if it is passed? I know, I’m being quite a pessimist here; but I just don’t trust the government anymore these days…

  16. Andria Benton says:

    I wanna add one more view on the matter. You gotta love politics! It is always about making the richest richer and the poor poorer, not to mention squeezing the life blood out of the middle class who have to front all of the bills for everyone else. I find it so hard to take politics seriously anymore, considering most people on the Senate or in the House of Representatives make at least 6 figures a year. Some even more then that, like the GOP Presidential frontrunners who all make at least 1 million dollars a year. I have no problem saying I think the US is run by bankers as opposed to genuine politicians. Bills like this, that we don’t frequently see in the news, are stark examples of this line of thinking. I hope it doesn’t pass through and the few good guys in the House will not vote for this. Thanks for bringing this to my attention as well! Just wait until my husband sees this article…

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  18. Tony Lee says:

    For large corporation and big businesses it takes a lot to reduce the cuts that they have to make to meet their goals so if that means that corporations need to fire American workers, than thats what they have to do. We can`t really stop that from happening but we can become “aware” of it.

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