Posts tagged ‘outsourcing’

About Those 1/2 Million Call Center Jobs Shipped Overseas…

by , posted on Friday, August 24th, 2012 at 12:19 pm

from The Big Picture, with Thom Hartmann, on RT

Ron Collins, Communication Workers of America (CWA) joins Thom Hartmann. A job that’s becoming increasingly harder and harder to find in America over the last few years is one in the call center industry. Since 2006 – a half-millions American call center jobs have been packed up and shipped overseas to low-wage countries. Companies like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and T-Mobile are the some of the biggest culprits when it comes to killing American call center jobs. But, Democrats in Congress have been pushing legislation to put an end ot this mass exodus of jobs. The United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act cuts off federal loans and benefits to companies that off-shore their call center jobs. This bill also keeps a running list of companies that have off-shored call center jobs in an effort to discourage the practice. Back in June, the House of Representatives took a vote on this legislation – and most Republicans lined up against it – killing the bill – and leaving the few Americans who still have call center jobs screwed. But now, Democrats in the Senate are trying to revive the legislation with the help of Senators Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania – two states that have been hit really hard by call center job losses. As Senator Sherrod Brown said this week in defense of the United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act: “When companies send call center jobs overseas, they don’t just frustrate consumers – they hurt our economy as well. With thousands of Ohioans looking for work, it just doesn’t make sense to ship these jobs overseas.” He’s right – so what can be done to make sure this legislation passes to stimulate OUR economy – instead of stimulate foreign economes with what used to be American call center jobs.

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MoveOn.org presidential campaign ad: Thank You For The Job, Mitt Romney!

by , posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 12:54 pm

from the MoveOn.org Political Action

Mitt Romney: Creating jobs since 1984 … in other countries.

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Barlett and Steele on “The Betrayal of the American Dream”

by , posted on Monday, July 30th, 2012 at 10:42 am

from Democracy Now!

The famed award-winning investigative reporting team of Donald Barlett and James Steele have just published a new book, “The Betrayal of the American Dream,” a followup to their landmark bestseller, “America: What Went Wrong.” As Republicans and Democrats continue disputing who should bear the brunt of the tax burden, Barlett and Steele argue that America’s middle class has been decimated over the years due to policies governing not only taxes but also bank regulations, trade deficits and pension funds. Their book chronicles how the American middle class has been systematically impoverished and its prospects thwarted in favor of a new ruling elite. Barlett and Steele have worked together for more than 40 years, sharing two Pulitzer prizes and two National Magazine awards. The duo joins us for the hour to discuss the assault on the middle class, the great tax heist, deregulation, the end of retirement, the outsourcing of U.S. jobs, the 2012 election and more.

Parts Two and Three after the jump.

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Bain, Romney and Obama Support Offshoring/Outsourcing of U.S. Jobs

by , posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2012 at 5:55 pm

In an attempt to differentiate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, the Obama campaign is working hard to draw attention to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital’s agenda to offshore and outsource jobs.

While not necessarily connected to the Obama campaign, there is a new push inside labor circles to draw attention to a small company based in Freeport, IL named Sensata. The company is owned by Bain Capital and is preparing to move 170 Illinois jobs to China. Factory workers are calling on Mitt Romney to step in and stop the plant closure.

I support the move to target Romney on this issue and I hope that national pressure causes Bain Capital to keep those jobs in Illinois and sign a union contract with the workers.

At the same time, I can’t help but call out the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration for blasting Romney in public while secretly (and I mean very secretly) holding closed-door meetings with 600 corporate advisors to write another free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), that will result in more off shoring and outsourcing of U.S. jobs. TPP is expected to be the largest and worst free trade agreement in global history.

In a recent RT article titled, “TPP secrets: Obama covertly granting more power to multinational corporations,” a doctor chastizes the president.

“Bush was better than Obama on this,” Judit Rius of Doctors Without Borders Access to Medicines Campaign tells HuffPo. “It’s pathetic, but it is what it is. The world’s upside-down.”

So, who do we blame?

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