Revenge of the unemployed

Date: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 6:06 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

The following is a very good article that describes the people who are
moblizing to fight for American jobs, but there is a statement that
needs clarification.

Glenn Jackson did not "create" The National Association for the
Employment of Americans (NAEA). Jackson was not a founding member. He
was invited to became Interim President after the organization was
formed and had a board of directors.

The NAEA Board did not re-elect Mr. Jackson to the NAEA presidency, but
allowed his term to expire. Mr. Jackson now heads the
www.americanjobscoalition.org. Jackson was the founder of the Coalition
and should be appropriately credited.

Glenn Jackson is also not affiliated with the RescueAmericanJobs
foundation which has developed the Meetup.com chapters across America -
including Atlanta.

For a list of current board members go to this webpage:
http://www.naea.us/aboutus.asp

short link:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?C11925936

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/atlanta_world/1003/15jobs.html;COXnetJSessionID=1NqcxkU76859RE6mSFkpOLngcNumeHpjJcBSJgmPpFESja6MF9sf!115479
0549?urac=n&urvf=10662487962960.8418131489269762

Revenge of the unemployed

By DAN CHAPMAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Upset with the loss of U.S. jobs to India, Russia and beyond, a group
of unemployed white-collar Atlantans vowed this week to target Georgia
politicians, governments and businesses they deem responsible for
sending jobs overseas.

Atlanta is behind the outsource outrage curve that has hit Denver,
Seattle, San Francisco and other cities stricken by huge white-collar
job losses. But local organizers plan to meet Oct. 23 in Marietta to
map out their anti-offshoring campaign.

One of their targets: the state of Georgia, which employs an
outsourcing firm to handle calls from the state's food stamp
recipients.

"Tax dollars should not be going outside the country," Glenn Jackson
said. "We will be protesting and lobbying at the state level."

Jackson, 49, was a senior manager making a "mid-six-figure" salary with
Siemens Energy and Automation in Alpharetta until he got laid off
nearly two years ago. After a yearlong stint selling shoes at
Rich's-Macy's, he is studying to become a grade school teacher.

He has also created the National Association for the Employment of
Americans (www.naea.us) -- an Internet-based nonprofit that protests
U.S. immigration and trade policies.

Nine million Americans, mostly blue-collar workers, remain unemployed.
But Forrester Research predicts that an additional 3.3 million
white-collar jobs in the United States will disappear by 2015.

Public opinion polls register what appears to be a rising wave of
protests nationwide. Fifty-four percent of Americans say free trade
isn't worth the massive amount of lost jobs it engenders, according to
a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll. Thirty-five percent say it
is.

Politicians, warns U.S. Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), ignore the
anti-globalization, anti-trade fervor at their own peril. "This thing
is so big [and] it shows the angst and the unemployment that's going on
across the country," said Manzullo, who chairs the powerful House Small
Business Committee.

Southern outsourcing began more than a decade ago with the exodus of
blue-collar textile and apparel workers. The trend has accelerated,
with nearly 300,000 of these jobs vanishing just since January 2001,
according to executives who gathered recently to warn the Bush
administration against taking their votes for granted.

Incumbents on notice

At news conferences in Spartanburg, S.C., and Greensboro, N.C., 80
textile officials recently demanded the White House limit Chinese
imports. They also announced a voter registration drive for their
employees.

"There is another election coming up, and the Republicans run the risk
of losing the South because of the type of trade policies that have
been put in place," said Roger Chastain, president of Mount Vernon
Mills in Greenville, S.C.

Jackson and other white-collar newcomers to the unemployment line claim
anti-offshoring Web sites can reach more than 100,000 angry Americans.
Already, the sites have helped gather protesters in Texas, Connecticut,
California and Washington.

Yet corporate America, under pressure from shareholders and Wall
Street, accelerates the offshoring trend. Intel Corp. Chairman Andy
Grove warned last week, for example, that the United States could lose
the bulk of its information technology jobs to overseas competitors.
Grove, according to The Wall Street Journal, said Intel "has no choice"
but to continue sending work abroad due to cost and productivity
pressures.

Experts say businesses can expect to save 20 percent to 50 percent in
costs through offshoring but that the issue is much more complicated
than portrayed by its opponents.

"There may be circumstances where companies are able to keep employment
in the United States by moving certain kinds of jobs offshore," said
Daryl Buffenstein, an Atlanta attorney and the general counsel for the
business-backed Global Personnel Alliance. "It's a much more complex
phenomenon than people give it credit for."

Marcus Courtney doesn't buy that argument. President of WashTech, a
Seattle-based union formed in 1998 to organize high-tech workers,
Courtney also scoffs at the notion that the next new thing --
biotechnology? nanotechnology? -- will create enough jobs to replace
those lost. Unions, once anathema to high-paid workers, envision great
gains from the outsourcing trend. WashTech, for example, has increased
its electronic membership eightfold, to 16,000, since January.

Restrictions proposals

The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers,
which represents 80,000 scientists and engineers, approved a resolution
recently to fight the outsourcing of jobs.

Congress is listening. Bills have been introduced in the House to
restrict offshoring, including one requiring any company winning a
federal contract to keep half its work force in the United States.

Manzullo has introduced legislation tying income tax credits to the
retention of jobs on U.S. soil. The General Accounting Office,
Congress' investigative arm, is studying the impact of offshoring on
the domestic job market

The anti-offshoring fight extends to state legislatures, too. Forty
states, according to The Charlotte Observer, hire outsourcing firms to
handle calls from welfare and food stamp recipients.

Georgia's Department of Human Resources pays Citicorp $8 million a year
to manage phone inquiries from the state's 438,000 food stamp
recipients. Citicorp outsources the work to an Indian call center that
handles roughly 1.7 million calls annually from Georgians.

Tim Connell, director of the state's Office of Planning and Budget,
says the deal saves money for Georgia taxpayers. The National
Association for the Employment of Americans' Jackson says the savings
aren't worth it.

"Tax dollars should not be going outside the country when Americans are
unemployed," he said. "We'll be protesting and organizing some lobbying
at the state level" to fight the outsourcing.

An uproar in New Jersey persuaded the Legislature there to cancel its
contract with a company employing foreign phone clerks. Iowa and
Florida have demanded that their food stamp queries be handled
domestically. North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley recently ordered a review
of state contracts to determine what goes overseas.

Politicians are getting the message from pollsters such as John Zogby.
He recently conducted an "anxiety factor" poll of 1,000 likely voters.
One-fourth of those making more than $75,000 a year fear that they, or
somebody in their home, will lose their job. That's nearly triple the
number from 1999.

"Clearly, these white-collar voters are swing voters," said Zogby,
president of Zogby International, an independent polling firm. "And
we're talking here mainly about suburbanites."

Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm

To Subscribe or Unsubscribe send an email to

Back to archives