Bitter in Ohio: LexisNexis Offshore Outsourcing More White Collar Jobs to India

As part of it's announced strategy to move all possible work out of the United States to India, Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch publishing giant and parent company of Lexis Nexis continues to eliminate positions at the Dayton, Ohio Lexis Nexis "campus" site. Elsevier and Lexis Nexis white collar workers continue to receive news of job cuts. Occassionally, the news leaks out to the press and then LexisNexis and RE "spokespersons" attempt to minimize the apparent impact, reassuring everyone that displaced workers will receive severence money and placement assistance. The truth is, of course, quite different from the "spin" of corporate public relations specialists...

One correspondent noted,

"Lexis is dumping all of us, all our [work] is now transferred to India.
All of building 8 will be notified and terminated starting June 23
Plus they are laying off an undetermined number from campus, got a bunch last week and more to come.
Only 3 analysts will survive and they will be required to travel to India and spend time training those people."

Of course, severence money and job placement assistance mentioned in the article below is, no doubt, contingent upon employee non-disclosure of offshore outsourcing details and cooperation in facilitating the offshoring to India - i.e., training Indian replacements and transferring knowledge... It is unlikely that the press and the public will ever know the full extent of the job cuts. I also doubt that people will realise that LN will attempt to coerce Americans into traveling to India to train foreign replacement workers.

Even the announced numbers of American workers displaced is deliberately understated. For example, the announced figure of "250" in the article headline below does not reflect the "38" announced (somewhere) last week at the Elsevier group at this Dayton location. The overall numbers of jobs being cut is always (and intentionally) a moving number.

One should anticipate future job cut announcements which when reported in the press, will omit all mention of previous job cuts or the destination of the jobs (India).

As these job cuts at LexisNexis illustrate, politicians, members of the press, "business leaders", and economists continue to misrepresent the nature of the job losses in Ohio and America. American white collar workers continue to lose their middle class jobs due to offshore outsourcing. Unlike the manufacturing jobs, most of these white collar jobs are going to India (facilitated by Indian "guest workers" in the U.S. on "business visas"). The "knowledge age" jobs -- not "industrial" or "manufacturing" or "union" jobs -- throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois are going offshore. These are the jobs which Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton assured us were the future in the wake of NAFTA.

I wish the press would move beyond their stereotypes of the midwest and focus on the fact that high tech and other white collar jobs are moving offshore...

LexisNexis to cut up to 250 jobs through 2009

By John Nolan

Staff Writer

Monday, April 14, 2008

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — LexisNexis plans to eliminate up to approximately 250 jobs between now and early 2009 at its suburban Dayton campus, according to a company announcement Monday, April 14.

The company disclosed that the information technology division of its parent company, Reed Elsevier, announced plans last week to phase out 38 positions from now through May 10 at the suburban Dayton operation, where about 3,000 people are employed. It is the company's single largest operational site in the United States.

And on Monday, LexisNexis said it will transfer the work of 215 Dayton-area positions to outside suppliers, part of a total of 290 positions whose work will be turned over to outside suppliers between now and early 2009 in order to cut costs.

Those reductions will affect data collection, conversion, editing and business systems operations, LexisNexis said. The cuts are necessary in order for the company to remain competitive and make investments to meet customer demands, management said.

All of the affected employees will receive severance benefits and help finding new jobs, the company said. It is possible that some employees might be redeployed within the company, management said.

"Guided by the long-term needs of our business, we regret that some of our employees will be leaving LexisNexis," Sue D'Agostino, the company's vice president for corporate communications, said in a statement.

Reed Elsevier said in February that it intended to achieve about $481 million in cost savings during the next three years.

The electronic publishing company provides information services to legal, corporate, government and academic customers.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

NOTE: The overall numbers of American workers being cut is likely far higher than the "250" noted in this article. 1,000 job outsourcings to India from the Dayton, Ohio location seems likely...

The REAL Economic State Of The Union

Noted economist and fierce critic of "free trade", Dr. Charles McMillion writes about the real state of the U.S. economy. Consider his thoughtful summary a "vaccination of truth" in preparation for the misinformation forthcoming in the next presidential address. The so-called "stimulus package" and rate cuts at the Fed are NOT going to pull the U.S. and American workers out of the downward economic spiral... As Dr. McMillion notes, "trading away our once unique economic strengths while borrowing against the future has failed". Read it HERE and print out a copy for reference during Monday evening's State of the Union address.

Hillary is Talking out of Both Sides of Her Mouth

Great exchange in the Debate last night re. the unwillingness of Sen. Clinton to give a straight answer to a direct question -- something long evident in her political career which most Americans objectively despise about politicians. Keep on doing what you do best Hillary. But please do it in front of more people so they can get a better measure of how much you are a "candidate for change"... Snicker...

“Unless I missed something,” he [Sen. Edwards] said, “Sen. Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes. America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them.”

Barack Obama added: “I was confused [by] Sen. Clinton's answer. I can't tell whether she was for it or against it. One of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face.”

Edwards assails the Clinton corruption machine

John Edwards summed up the "choice" Americans will have should Hillary Clinton become the Democratic Party presidential candidate: "Down one path, we trade corporate Democrats for corporate Republicans; our cronies for their cronies; one political dynasty for another dynasty; and all we are left with is a Democratic version of the Republican corruption machine."


Hillary Clinton represents a sort of "one America" (far different from that proposed by John Edwards). Hillary's "one America" is for the very greedy special interests...

Indeed, Clinton's so-called "Middle Class Express" bus tour could have been more aptly termed the "Throw the Middle Class Under the Bus" tour...

Time after time, Clinton has voted against the interests of most Americans and for the powerful lobbies which insist on re-making American law and American society for the benefit of corporations and the rich elites which control them.

Updates...

Hillary Clinton accuses rivals of desperation

"Will she be the person who brings about the change in this country?" said Mr Edwards.

"You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy. But I don't think that's going to happen."

Increasingly defensive, Mrs Clinton raised her voice to levels that may have made her campaign staff wince off stage [...]"

Is Hillary the one who is really desperate???

That is, desperate to avoid answering hard questions regarding her policy positions and legislative votes? Desperate to avoid being identified as part of the "culture of corruption" -- being a "corporate Democrat"... Hillary has been adept to obfuscation and avoiding hard questions. I'm pleased to hear John Edwards sharpening the debate and demanding some answers.

Republicans Against Free Trade, Democrats Posture

In 2003 - 2004, I was on the phones and on the internet urging Democratic presidential candidates to repudiate "Free Trade" and offshore outsourcing and the "guest worker" (H-1b, L-1) visa programs used to facilitate offshore outsourcing. The campaign managers and advisors kept activists like me at arms length. They wanted us to attack Republicans and deliver support (money and votes) while their candidates reassured business lobbies (as far away as India and China) that any positions they took were just posturing for the angry ill-informed workers.

Hell, when John Kerry had a chance to deal with the offshore outsourcing jobs issue in a national debate, he quickly stated that he would not "pander" to people who were opposed to free trade. (This went over real well with workers who were looking for something more than a slick facile slogan like "outsource Bush"; it may have cost Kerry the election.)

In short, Democratic Party presidential candidate Kerry tried to use the Offshore outsourcing/free trade issue in '04 but found that such positions upset his richy-rich business contributors so he backed off his "Benedict Arnold" rhetoric and tried to have it both ways. I noticed it, people on my email lists noticed, blog posters noticed it and even the business press in the U.S. and offshore noticed it. People do catch on...

And, where is John Edwards the sometime critic of NAFTA and "free trade" today? He's talking about "Two Americas" but nary a word about offshore outsourcing of American middle class jobs. Oh yea, he did have time to visit rich high tech CEOs in the Silicon Valley to explain how he supports their "need" for more imported "replacement workers", I mean, "guest workers" because there's such a skills shortage what with all the American IT workers who have been fired by the thousands. (Nah, Edwards didn't say that last part; I was just being sarcastic.

Sadly, Obama, is also courting the richy-rich business groups who are benefitting from offshore outsourcing American jobs and importing lower-wage "guest workers". Yea, his campaign was stupid, rude and irresponsible in the Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab) comments but it's unfortunate that Obama felt compelled to drop the whole issue of Hillary and Bill's ties to the elites benefiting from American job losses.

So, just because sometime Republican voters are disenchanted with free trade and offshore outsourcing, Democratic candidates have to be able to offer some credible alternative. They failed to deliver this in '04 and, at this point, they're not doing any better in '07. In fact, they're doing worse: they haven't even opened the subject.

Unfortunately, real democrats like Bernie (technically an "I") Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Jim Webb and Byron Dorgan are not among the presidential primary contenders. If they were, we'd have some people who could effectively and credibly debate the offshore outsourcing and worker replacement issues.

As it is, Hillary Clinton's alleged differences with her husband on trade and labor issues (played up and exaggerated in the WSJ) are unbelievable -- IMO mere positioning to win over labor and Democrats. Hillary is as "DLC" and tainted with pro-outsourcing lobby money as they come. She's even carved out a special niche supporting the expansion of the worker replacement visas...

Originally posted to Jonathan Tasini's site as a comment on, "Democratic Golden Opportunity: Republican Voters Oppose "Free Trade"

Who among the Democratic presidential candidates has the credibility to do anything about this?



Definitely, NOT HILLARY CLINTON.