Boston Globe employees protest India and India protests right back

[Ian David]

Submitted by adamg on Fri, 03/16/2007 - 9:14am.

File this under "It's a small world, after all:" When the Boston Newspaper Guild takes out an ad in the Herald protesting Globe plans to outsource some jobs to Bangalore, one of the first responses is from Indian blogger Manish Vij:

... What's funny about this is that the same people protesting globalization also protest poverty. Yet at the same time they oppose building economically efficient orgs which help U.S. workers and the economy. And they oppose helping Bangaloreans who are objectively less wealthy. So for many, it's really an anti-modernity-if-it-takes-money-from-me movement.

More:
http://www.universalhub.com/node/8017

[lligrd]

1. I View It A Bit Differently

I have nothing against improving the lives of those in other countries but I don't think we should impoverish our middle class to do so. This is about the rich getting even richer by finding cheap labor and getting tax incentives to do so. How about we outsource some of those CEO jobs instead?

[treestar]

2. Americans have this incredibly over simplified view of how the

economy works. They see it as a simple zero sum and only locally influenced set-up. There are say 200 million Americans in the work force, so there ought to always be 200 million jobs for which the Americans are precisely qualified.

However, Americans are not forced to go into jobs of any particular kind - we all get to do what we want to do in life. So if an employer has a job open that there is no American for, the employer is supposed to just keep that job open until some American feels like doing it.

Then I guess it is required that if x number of Americans retire and y number of Americans become adult and go into the work force, that the number of jobs must precisely change by the figure y-x.

This might be possible in a Soviet style economy that is totally state-run so it can be organized, but some Americans would then be required to go into fields they do not freely choose.

Or if an American wants to go abroad to take a job, he/she could be prohibited if this country has a job open for him/her.

The problem with this outsourcing issue is that we don't have the power to demand that the companies in question stay. No company is required to remain in business, even. We have to compete on this scale.

There could be investment in other things, here, too, we never hear that side of it - we could also quit making it tough for foreign investors to come here - what are they doing, outsourcing from their country? Is that equally as bad? Could we be stealing jobs from Swedes or Italians? But that is somehow OK?

[silverojo]

3. Wait till your job is outsourced

Then you'll understand reality.