One of the drawbacks of being an IT professional is being experimented on by pointy-haired bosses who have fallen in love with a new management fad. The PHBs have taken us through downsizing, rightsizing, vision statements, mission statements, dead Chinese warriors, SPC, Extreme Programming, Quality Circles, Synchronous Manufacturing, Total Quality Management and (if you were among the really unlucky ones), weeks of butt-numbing meetings on something called Six Sigma.
But we can survive such things, for geeks have developed a unique ability to doze off with our eyes open.
The latest PHB craze, however, is far more baleful than any of those dear old nostrums. It's called offshore outsourcing.
Remember back in 1999, when you had a job, what a hard time you had talking the boss into letting you telecommute two days a week? "Look at the savings on office supplies," you said. "Four more hours a week I can spend working instead of plowing the freeway!" Management's counters to your arguments were always the same: "All environments other than the Datawhack Inc cube farm are potentially distracting;" "When you're not there physically, how will anyone know what you're doing?" and that ultimate deal killer, "We can't possibly allow our proprietary software and sensitive client data in the insecure environment of a spare bedroom!"
Well, the good news of the 21st century is that management now fully buys into your case for telecommuting. The bad news is that your entire job, six days a week plus holidays and unpaid overtime, is now being done by someone whom the boss has never met, working in a Third World country for a fraction of your old salary.
While America's pundit logorrheasphere may not particularly care that your geekly coding job is now being beamed in from offshore, it might be a lot more interested to know that every back-office job where there is no face-to-face contact with customers is at risk. Your credit card records, banking information, medical records, and insurance claims are now being worked on in countries where civil wars are being waged against terrorist insurgencies. So much for management's patrician concern over the security of its ones and zeroes.
There are a number of other well-known problems with offshore outsourcing. In the interest of brevity I'll breeze through some of the larger objections:
- Project design is a tennis game played between developer and customer: Customer asks you to do X, you respond with a client-level explanation of what it would take to do X, he strokes his beard and asks you if X-prime would be possible, you volley back a revised design, and so on. It goes on for at least a few iterations before you put cursor to code development window. How long does this game take if the developer is halfway around the world, learned the customer's language as a college junior, and is embedded in a totally different culture?
- Offshoring is the ultimate development of the management philosophy that all IT people are as interchangeable as urinal cakes. What happens in the middle of a multi-year implementation when, in their ongoing quest for a country where people will work for free, the PHBs switch to a development team in a different part of the world?
- The ongoing controversy over patent and copyright in America leads us to believe that corporate boards are concerned about protecting their intellectual property. What happens to IP when the work is being done in a country with a radically different legal system? And if a legal dispute were to arise, do you appeal to a tribunal run by a tribal chieftain, or do you burn incense before a multi-armed deity and hope for the best?
- [The problem of middlemen] When you outsource, you don't go overseas to hire your own staff. You retain a consulting firm based where the workers are. Of course, you made sure that this firm had expertise in your company's field. So now how do you know how many of your direct competitors the same staff might be working for, right at this moment?
- The first outsourcing operations farmed out programming tasks only. That was, after all, where most of the money went. Everyone promised to audit the hell out of the code being sent back. And of course, it was all going to be rigorously tested. But then you discovered business process outsourcing! Now that you've sent the whole back office overseas, including the auditors and testers... well, let's just say that if I find out who you are, I'm not going to ride on your planes or rely on power from your grid.
- The North American developers who used to work for you had an average of 16 years of experience. But those doddering 28-year-olds demanded three meals a day, medical care and in a few cases, weekends off, so you plugged in offshore replacements with an average of 4 years on the job. What do you think might be the actual depth of their knowledge? How adaptable will they be as new technologies come along?
- Dealing with work located at a great distance requires advanced remote management. Folks, we're talking about people who are not confident of their ability to manage a project on the other side of town.
The PHBs love outsourcing because it saves money. In long-range corporate planning departments, where the B-school elite gaze ahead all the way to the hazy outlines of next quarter, the thinking is that the savings will goose the value of their shares, so that the last eight employees left in the company will someday retire rich.
What these folks are ignoring is the effect of outsourcing on politics. Geeks are not very political, but have until now leaned libertarian. All through the 80s and 90s, the tech vote created the sunny business climate that made the big boom possible. Today the geeks – and office workers in general - are running through their own retirement savings as they vainly look for work. Once they lose their houses, they will turn into another sullen huddle of trailer-dwelling outsiders. Like the Greens, their sole political focus will become vengeance against "the suits." Management, by jumping into one fad too many, will lose the very political world it had hoped to create for its own comfort. Look forward to a nation of fifty Californias where every city is Eugene, Oregon.
Hence, I offer this scenario of what may happen if this goes on. Let's look forward to what America might look like after a few more laps of the race to the bottom have been run....
September 11, 2011
Nobody expected this to be an ordinary Sunday. Airport security was especially tight on this significant anniversary. The random-pluck programs were turned off today. Every passenger was required to step into the X-ray booth, undress, and place all clothing into the gamma box before being allowed to proceed.
No one will ever know why Austin was the first to be affected, that morning. Perhaps it had something to do with the city having one of the last "Bushvilles," tin shanties clustered near the airport. With the exception of Austin, most of the nation's geeks had been resettled in huge public dormitories on farms run by the National Forfeiture Administration. There (living on land once owned by some farmer accused of smoking a joint, downloading music, violating the new .03 blood-alcohol DUI limit, visiting a prostitute, or returning DVDs late), a computer person could compete for regular contracts on the global market, sustaining himself on a world-average annual income by growing his own food and sharing camp chores with bunkmates.
But Austin still had a cell of active Republicans, with the ear of one recalcitrant state appeals judge. The Austin resettlement colony had been held up on one technicality after another. If you wanted to find a computer maven in this city, you'd do the pretend-you-don't-see-them stroll past the beggars at the Bushville perimeter wire, then prowl the rows of shacks until you found the ragged person whose battered solar-powered laptop produced the E-mail message that had looked so good on your watchtablet. If there was going to be any repeat of the Cupertino food riot of 2005, it was highly likely to happen right here.
A hotel executive from Hearst Dreamland Resort happened to be the first. After stepping off her flight from San Luis Obispo, she pushed her card into the Bank of India ATM near Baggage Claim, and keyed in her PIN. Instead of the usual flood of tiny aluminum dollar coins, the machine flashed ACCOUNT DECLINED. She was too busy to pick up the Help Line receiver and wait the twenty minutes it took to get a fuzzy, accented voice that might or might not have been able to diagnose her problem. After all, California had only just emerged from Chapter 9 reorganization after six years, and was still under martial law. Public resentment simmered over the mass sale of state assets in bankruptcy, even after Gov. Boxer mandated that eBay hire local temps to run the sale servers. When the Soros/Tiger Balm partnership snapped up Hearst on the third day of bidding, the Silicon Valley Geek-Green Alliance had posted anonymized threats to burn the Castle down. A wall of military security kept the GGA out, but all the execs had seen hacker attacks in one form or another. Since the lynching of the Advistron board in 2007, most upper-level corporate folk had found it prudent to stay in their gated compounds and let Trav-L-Temp proxies in stiff white Kevlar suits run all their out-of-town errands.
Up one level in the Austin terminal, there was a commotion at the Southwest Delta United counter. The reservation system seemed to be running, but at 0800 sharp it had stopped accepting locator codes. Every ticket in the system had, apparently, electronically vanished. Passengers were waving e-ticket confirmation printouts that no longer corresponded to reservations.
High above the waiting area, the CNN monitor carried first reports from the airline's check-in counters in New York, Chicago, Zurich, Beijing, Sydney, and Dubai: every ticket query was coming up Not Found. Twenty-three minutes later, a corporate rep at the Guangzhou datacenter came on the air to report an "intrusion" that would require a "software rollback and restore." The airline would be down the rest of the day.
At the same moment in Los Angeles, every one of the electronic signs on the Spielberg Freeway began flashing EMERGENCY! EXIT NOW! Five minutes later, the signs on the Caltrans public freeways followed suit. Traffic surged onto surface streets to form a puzzled mass of weekend drivers wondering where to go, just as tourists shopping for souvenirs at the Chinese Chinese Theater became the first in the nation to discover that their credit cards had just electronically left home without them.
At the "Summer White House" in upstate New York, President Clinton was finishing up a working vacation, polishing her Homecoming Week speech for Wellesley College. Late in her administration, she was looking forward to summing up the country's years of strife and triumph: the California bankruptcy, the National Health Plan, the scandal over the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and her landmark solution to the outsourcing crisis: the Labor Resettlement Act.
The Labor Resettlement Act had allowed Americans to get back into competition with the Third World -- not by imposing tariffs and embargos, but by competing directly on standard of living. It had almost worked, too: with the American technical wage brought down to the new-dollar equivalent of $5,000 a year, the new "dorm geek army" began winning back software contracts, just in time to boost Clinton's polls enough to hold off Stossel in 2008, gaining a second term. But in the following year, the traditional outsourcing havens began to lose share to Vietnam, Indonesia, and the emerging "Stans" of southwest Asia, where the standard of living remained still lower, and people will work for even less. The world back-office wage dropped to $2,500 per year, and only Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Krugman's program to devalue the dollar kept America in the running. The country was clawing its way back, and by now it was rumored that over ten percent of the latest Windows release was American-made subcontracted code.
Two hours after the first signs of attack, Clinton received a call on the Pentagon secure link. Defense Secretary Ramsey Clark, white-faced, broke the news of a nationwide software meltdown. Virus detectors saw no unusual activity. It was only after the Pentagon, which fortunately still had a back office staff all its own, began to put together the stories of al Qaeda operatives who had trickled out of their caves and gone to computer schools all over the Third World, that the picture began to come into focus.
In the minutes left before the embedded software that tied America's TV networks together failed for good, Clinton went on the air, bit her lip, and began to tell the nation an ancient story of Troy and an outsourced horse.
In 15 years or so robots will take over all service
industry jobs and manufacturing jobs. This is of far more concern to me than any
outsourcing to China or India. China and India will grow a local demand for high
tech services and products that will inevitably catch up with their supply. This
will happen sooner than you think. China right now has a middle class population
of 250 million people which incidently happens to be equal to the US total
population. Outsourcing will be a non issue in a couple of years I almost
guarantee it. Robots will be the worst thing that's ever happened to humanity
however because there's nothing that the displaced workers will be able to do to
make a living.
What happens when societies have large numbers of military aged unemployed
people? WAR. Get ready for it.
Good article, funny,
if the issue wasn't so serious...
 Saveby rmukunda |
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This is what happens when
globalization is allowed to run amok, without any safeguards. Unfortunately, this is the way business runs today. First, it was the steel workers, then it was the garment workers, now it is some of the white collar jobs. I always wondered why all these people didn't march on Washington. The business argument for getting the work done for cheaper, a lot cheaper, thus creating efficiencies is undeniable. However, shouldn't there be some limits on this, some balance, so everyone's interests are taken into account? I agree this is very difficult to do, but the debate must begin, appropriate changes made, and the politicians must be held ultimately held accountable. |
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Outsourcing
Save by dryg77 |
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I have vitnesed outsourcing
in one company X. This company is located in Toronto. They transfered
quality assurance department to India. Prior to transfer people from India
were comming here for 8 months. Note that they had to sleep somwhere, eat
somwhere and so on. They were learning products. When everything was
transfered it took another 4 month to set the right environement in India.
The the real work started. Toronto based company laied off 25 testers.
They left just 5 high paid testers for final verification just for couple
more months. What a surprise, those 5 testers are still working but five
times more. Why because the data that comes from India is always OK,
stating that there are a few bugs in every release which is not true. Now
these 5 guys are working days and evenings in order verify the quality of
the product and finding hundrends of bugs. Now this Toronto company
probably spend more money then before in hope that one day it will become
cheaper. I am personaly work with smart people from many contries including India. Mostly they have good education but the main problem with them is that they are not reliable in their work. I have a coworker and he has a good education. When we disscuss some new ideas he always knows everything and suggesting the new tecnics. One day, when we had bear I told him how smart he was and that I wish to know as much as he does. He told me the sicret. "Always say that you know everything, be agressive and then if you do not know, you will learn it." Another guys are Chinese. I am immigrant myselfe but I can not understand 3/4 of what they are saying. Besides, most of those who I worked with are former medical workers, chemical engineers or some other engineers who get 6 month Chinese training program in Toronto and got the job. People are lying on the interviews show false diplomas. You know that Canada is the socialist country, so if you got the job and your are visible minority then you will not be fired unless company goes bancrupt. I think the best way to survive is to by a farm and to start growing vegetables because in five - ten years we will have pay with tomatos fore services. |
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It's not the Indian programmers... (Score:5, Insightful)
by fildo (683072) * on Tuesday January 27, @06:18PM (#8105831) |
| ... it's the white collar execs (and wannabe execs) here in Corporate
America that we're mad at! They get the nice fat promotions and bonuses, while our jobs go elsewhere. And we are the same people they praised just last year as invaluable assets to the company. So what happened? They can't get rich pulling fancy accounting tricks, so this is what they've resorted to. I seriously hope that I'm wrong when I predict that this whole thing will fail miserably (taking the off-shore jobs with it). |
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How many steel workers are left today? (Score:5, Insightful)
by SPYvSPY (166790) on Tuesday January 27, @06:55PM (#8106339) (http://slashdot.org/) |
| How many loggers while you're at it? Face it--the fantasy world of overpaid IT jobs is gone forever. You have a skill that is basically fungible in today's world, and can be purchased at a lower price than would sustain or satisfy you. What IT people have been failing to understand for years now is that technology expertise is not as valuable a skill as it was once perceived. In fact, a lot of technology work is drudgery on the order of rivetting and lever-pulling. Too bad for those who were counting on making $300,000 a year. Time to reinvent yourself. The steelworkers did it. The loggers did it. Now it's your turn. |
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The problems with outsourcing (Score:5, Interesting)
by SilentSage (656382) * on Tuesday January 27, @06:24PM (#8105903) |
| This article makes interesting advertising for outsourcing firms and raises some very valid points but hardly can be considered either objective or entirely factual. The article talks about the quality of Indian IT firms (and they do have some high quality professional firms). However, they fail to mention the many negative experiences U.S. firms have had with botched projects, poor service and support compounded by language issues despite claims that Indian English skills are adequate (albeit this is not true in every instance). One of the main issues offsetting these facts is that they work for a tenth of what their US counterparts do. Companies find it cost effective to allow them to make these mistakes and learn from them (which they seem to be doing). Outsourcing is a minefield that can lead to extraordinary success or disastrous failure. From an economic perspective the cost savings you reap from outsourcing you pay for in the long term (as a nation) by the erosion of your markets buying power. 3 Million consumers in your home market (making $70,000 dollars a year) are replaced by consumers in a market hostile to foreign competition making $8000 dollars a year (for the top tier anyway). Sooner or later America will realize this and legislation will be put into place to stop it. But in the meantime hang onto your seats |
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Rather pointless article (Score:5, Interesting)
by khyron664 (311649) on Tuesday January 27, @06:24PM (#8105896) |
| Outsourcing isn't the magic arrow CEOs want it to be. This article
doesn't really address anything important at all. Ratings are pretty
meaningless. I know parts of companies that are rated at SEI Level 5, but
produce some of the worst crap I've seen. They're rated well though, so
they much be good. Why doesn't someone write an article about all the times outsourcing has been tried before? How about what happened with Malaysia? How about the fact that the overhead involved in trying to manage people half-way around the world is higher than the amount they save by outsourcing? This isn't a new fad people. Sure, the people and the places change but the problems don't. Things are different now than they were in the 80's I'll grant you, but no one seems to be drawing the comparisons. Health Care costs are rising in the US, thus possibly providing better savings when outsourcing now. However, it's not like this is a new concept and that the problems aren't well known. Let's see some hard questions asked and analysis done based on past experience! |
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The problems with outsourcing (Score:5, Interesting)
by SilentSage (656382) * on Tuesday January 27, @06:24PM (#8105903) |
| This article makes interesting advertising for outsourcing firms and raises some very valid points but hardly can be considered either objective or entirely factual. The article talks about the quality of Indian IT firms (and they do have some high quality professional firms). However, they fail to mention the many negative experiences U.S. firms have had with botched projects, poor service and support compounded by language issues despite claims that Indian English skills are adequate (albeit this is not true in every instance). One of the main issues offsetting these facts is that they work for a tenth of what their US counterparts do. Companies find it cost effective to allow them to make these mistakes and learn from them (which they seem to be doing). Outsourcing is a minefield that can lead to extraordinary success or disastrous failure. From an economic perspective the cost savings you reap from outsourcing you pay for in the long term (as a nation) by the erosion of your markets buying power. 3 Million consumers in your home market (making $70,000 dollars a year) are replaced by consumers in a market hostile to foreign competition making $8000 dollars a year (for the top tier anyway). Sooner or later America will realize this and legislation will be put into place to stop it. But in the meantime hang onto your seats |
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Just more hype (Score:5, Interesting)
by jafac (1449) on Tuesday January 27, @06:29PM (#8105982) (http://slashdot.org/) |
| That's all this Indian Outsourcing thing is. Are there really really good, really smart Indian programmers? Of course there are! But overall, on the average, outsourcing will end up biting most companies in the ass, in the long run. There are hidden costs to it, like the 11 hour time difference, language barriers, cultural differences (anecdotally, from many accounts, Indians tend not to raise questions, or think independently when a design sucks, etc.) Worse yet, this will bite the US Software industry in the ass when we suffer from brain drain - when software engineering is no longer a sought after degree. Then the Indians will start their own companies, and eat our lunches. Worse still - with the decimation of these high-paying jobs, comes an overall lowering of the standard of living here in the US. These companies got rich by selling to the richest market in the world - American consumers. By gutting their own customers, these companies are shooting themselves in the foot. - - - That said - the writing, in big letters, in crayon, is: Investors should believe that a wise company outsources, because it's a move towards efficiency. It will eliminate those overpaid "web designers" that are sapping corporate profits. Companies are "cutting fat". It's perceived as a gutsy move. Actually, it's the herd mentality. "Oh my god! IBM's outsourcing, they're going to KILL us unless we outsource too." But mainly - it's a movement designed to lure investment dollars back to the Tech Industry. It's basically hype. Companies who outsource are selling stock. Not products and services. This is their motivation, their drive. And it's very much a herd mentality. Among investors, AND corporations. They may be heading off a cliff. They may be heading to the slaughterhouse. Or perhaps greener pastures. But make no mistake. The Outsourcing Movement is NOT a drive to offer better service, or find better talent, or even save real money. It's a drive to LOOK like they are. |
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Re:Just more hype (Score:1)
by Zeromous (668365) on Tuesday January 27, @07:22PM (#8106722) (http://www.whiteravens.com/) |
| While I've noticed some of the Indian people I work with are quiet and
don't rock the boat, I consider it a cultural thing- sort of like how you
would zip your mouth in a Honda Design meeting. Also there are plently of
outspoken Indian people I work with. So obviously- let's forget the
blatent stereotyping. It serves no one It seems to me most of the comments
below are having trouble with this and miss the point in the process. The interesting thing is companies are using this outsourcing thing as FUD to tow their bottom lines. This is standard practice during recession and visions of Roger, GM and Capt. Da (Da-Da for short) are grossly exaggerated. Thank god we don't have a union to negotiate our jobs away rather than a common readjusting of our worth as IT workers in North American society like our poor friends the American Autoworker. The parent comment is spot on in asserting "The Outsourcing Movement is NOT a drive to offer better service, or find better talent, or even save real money. It's a drive to LOOK like they are". The good news is, things are not as bad as they seem. The IT Workers Bottom line: You want your job to be safe? That is entirely up to you. But in reality no job is safe. |
| [ Reply to This | Parent ] |
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Re:Just more hype (Score:2)
by pipingguy (566974) on Tuesday January 27, @09:46PM (#8108342) (http://www.pipingdesign.org/) |
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Then the Indians will start their own companies, and eat our
lunches. That's a natural progression, since someone has already moved the cheese. |
| [ Reply to This | Parent ] |
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Re:This problem is not as big as some think (Score:2, Interesting)
by Tablizer (95088) on Tuesday January 27, @08:20PM (#8107356) (http://www.geocities.com/tablizer | Last Journal: Saturday March 15, @01:22PM) |
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most of the jobs that are moving out of the country are the type of
jobs that are high profile.... projects that require teams of 20 or 30
people (maybe) and that lasts for a year or longer....But many programmers
are employed where proximity is important....Maybe it is a small...
institution....which needs a few programmers to build in house systems.
I agree with that assessment, however, the loss of the "big projects" will flood the market with programmers for many years. It is like musical chairs with 3 chairs and 10 players. Your point focuses on the 3 chairs, but not the 7 players without a chair. Nobody is suggesting that *all* programming jobs are disappearing. |
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Re:This problem is not as big as some think (Score:2, Interesting)
by anantherous coward (695798) on Tuesday January 27, @08:22PM (#8107374) |
| You are right! Here is an article of interest: The Myth of the Race to the Bottom [freetrade.org]. It is easy to be fearful due to the short term pain due to economic dislocations, but growth will continue. We haven't come close yet to exhausting all the new areas. Note two emerging revolutions: nano-tech and bio-tech. Also, we still have a long way to go in the whole knowledge revolution area. My own belief is that total programming jobs in the US will grow over time, not shrink. Expect a new expansion in a few years time. Look for jobs in small business and nich industries. |
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Re:Opposition is racist (Score:5, Insightful)
by javiercero (518708) on Tuesday January 27, @06:23PM (#8105878) |
| The key word is not "better" but "cheaper", it happened with
manufacturing jobs in the past 2 decades... it started happening with
other jobs now. As long as executive positions are not being outsourced
Corporate America could care less about who is doing the job, and the
quality of it. In some sense it is economic suicide, sure you produce cheaper goods, but those who are in this country to buy them are out of jobs. I.e. they have no money to buy those cheap goods, and the people who produced the goods are too underpayed to afford those goods. This is why MBA schools should be shut down once and for all, they have been produced miserable failures for the past 2 decades, a ton of greedy idiot savants who are unable to see the whole picture. I could care less if Indian companies can do the same job better, or cheaper. If that was the case Indian corporations would rule the market, if there was indeed a perfect free economic system as the article sort of tried to hint. |
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George Monbiot - The Flight to India (Score:4, Interesting)
by gordoni (7864) on Tuesday January 27, @06:53PM (#8106299) (http://www.base.com/) |
| Here is an insightful recent article on outsourcing by
George Monbiot [monbiot.com]
(one of the world's leading overachievers):
The Flight to India The jobs Britain stole from the Asian subcontinent 300 years ago are now returning. Is this a good thing or a bad one? If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem. Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India.1 Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products.2 We are rich because the Indians are poor. Now the jobs we stole 300 years ago are returning to India. Last week the Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to move to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank announced that it is cutting 4000 customer service jobs in Britain, and shifting them to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Standard Chartered, Norwich Union, BUPA, Reuters, Abbey National and Powergen have already begun to move their call centres to India. The British workers at the end of the line are approaching the end of the line. There is a profound historical irony here. Indian workers can outcompete British workers today because Britain smashed their ability to compete in the past. Having destroyed India's own industries, the East India Company and the colonial authorities obliged its people to speak our language, adopt our working practices and surrender their labour to multinational corporations. Workers in call centres in Germany and Holland are less vulnerable than ours, as Germany and Holland were less successful colonists, with the result that fewer people in the poor world now speak their languages. The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the kind now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment in the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and 1990s. The government handed out grants for cybersweatshops in places whose industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards and steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have been testing their systems at government expense before exporting them somewhere cheaper. It is not hard to see why almost all of them have chosen India. The wages of workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one tenth of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of education are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While British workers will take call centre jobs only when they have no choice, Indian workers see them as glamorous.3 One technical support company in Bangalore recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications.4 British call centres moving to India can choose the most charming, patient, biddable, intelligent workers the labour market has to offer. There is nothing new about multinational corporations forcing workers in distant parts of the world to undercut each other. What is new is the extent to which the labour forces of the poor nations are also beginning to threaten the security of our middle classes. In August, the Evening Standard came across some leaked consultancy documents suggesting that at least 30,000 executive positions in Britain's finance and insurance industries are likely to be transferred to India over the next five years.5 In the same month, the American consultants Forrester Research predicted that the US will lose 3.3 million white collar jobs between now and 2015.6 Most of them will go to India. Just over half of these are menial "back office" jobs, such as taking calls and typing up data. The rest belong to managers, accountants, underwriters, computer programmers, IT consultants, biotechnicians, architects, designers and corporate lawyers.7 For the first time in history, the professional classes of Britain and America find themselves in direct competition with the professional classes of another nation. Over the next few years, we can expect to encounter a lot less enthusiasm for free trade and globalisation in the parties and the newspapers which represent them. Free trade is fine, as long as it affects someone else's job. So an historical restitution appears to be taking place, as hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them good ones, flee to the economy we ruined. Low as the wages for these positions are by comparison to our own, they are generally much higher than those offered by domestic employers. A new middle class is developing in cities previously dominated by caste. Its spending will stimulate the economy, which in turn may lead to higher wages and improved conditions of employment. The corporations, of course, will then flee to a cheaper country, but not before they have left some of their money behind. According to the consultants Nasscom and McKinsey, India -- which is always short of foreign exchange -- will be earning some $17 billion a year from outsourced jobs by 2008.8 On the other hand, the most vulnerable communities in Britain are losing the jobs which were supposed to have rescued them. Almost two-thirds of call centre workers are women,9 so the disadvantaged sex will slip still further behind. As jobs become less secure, multinational corporations will be able to demand ever harsher conditions of employment in an industry which is already one of the most exploitative in Britain. At the same time, extending the practices of their colonial predecessors, they will oblige their Indian workers to mimic not only our working methods, but also our accents, our tastes and our enthusiasms, in order to persuade customers in Britain that they are talking to someone down the road.10 The most marketable skill in India today is the ability to abandon your identity and slip into someone else's. So is the flight to India a good thing or a bad thing? The only reasonable answer is both. The benefits do not cancel out the harm. They exist, and have to exist, side by side. This is the reality of the world order Britain established, and which is sustained by the heirs to the East India Company, the multinational corporations. The corporations operate only in their own interests. Sometimes these interests will coincide with those of a disadvantaged group, but only by disadvantaging another. For centuries, we have permitted ourselves to ignore the extent to which our welfare is dependant on the denial of other people's. We begin to understand the implications of the system we have created only when it turns against ourselves. |
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Re:George Monbiot - The Flight to India (Score:1)
by Adam_Trask (694692) on Tuesday January 27, @10:07PM (#8108539) |
| Wish i had some mod points for ya.
Never had thought of it this way...but yes, if India (or any other 3rd world country) was not left behind in the last few centuries, then we would not have had any outsourcing. Ah, the irony... |