HP Hacking Away at Middle Class Jobs -- AGAIN

Over the last several months one of my colleagues, a former EDS employee, told me about the deteriorating work conditions, declining benefits and shrinking incomes of his former co-workers at EDS, now an "HP company".

I made several attempts to share this information with reporters at the Wall Street Journal who were writing about declining work conditions and benefits of American workers.

However, it appears that the story has been "broken" elsewhere at nbcbayarea.com.

Here's the URL: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/HPs-Huge-Salary-Cuts-Forcing-Out-Old-EDS-Employees-52485672.html

HP's Huge Salary Cuts Forcing Out Old EDS Employees

By RANDY MCILWAIN

Updated 10:11 AM PDT, Wed, Aug 5, 2009

AP

When Information Technology came of age, Ross Perot's EDS was among the world leaders. Ask almost anyone at the Plano based company, they'll tell you there was pride that went with employment there and that hard work was rewarded with good salaries and benefits.

In 2008, EDS was bought by corporate IT giant, Hewlett Packard, also known as hp. After the transition, EDS employees are no longer singing the same tune about where they work.

"The community needs to know what's happening to an outstanding company," said an employee who wished to remain anonymous.

That employee has worked for EDS between 12-20 years, climbing the corporate ladder but still firmly in the middle class. Last week he received an email which informed him his base salary would be reduced effective Sept. 1.

"We don't know what we're going to do. We don't know," the man told NBCDFW, as tears streamed from his eyes.

Employees were prepared for salary cuts between 2 1/2 percent to 5 percent. Last Feburary, former EDS employees had their salaries sliced by hp by 2 1/2 percent. In April, more cuts with salaries slashed another 10 percent, that 10 percent figure was restored a month later but the email received by the employee this time indicates nothing surgical in the wage cut.

"My pay is being reduced a total of 29 percent, 20 percent effected Sept. 1, the additional 9 percent effective Sept. 1, 2010," the man said.

That's nearly a 32 percent salary cut for one employee in two years time -- more than one-third of his base salary. The cuts push him back to the salary he earned working the same job in the same building more than 10 years ago.

Other former EDS employees said that under Hewlett Packard, they've experienced salary cuts of between 10 percent and 47 percent.

A spokesperson for Hewlett Packard said not all former EDS employees face wage cuts and that the salary realignment," enables hp to effectively drive its pay for performance strategy with a consistent job-based foundation for rewards, development and organization planning," said an hp spokesperson.

HP also says CEO Mark Hurd took a 20 percent cut on his base salary of nearly $10 million dollars a year, however when reminded that Hurd also made an additional $23.9 million in bonus pay, the spokesperson said, "You're comparing apples to oranges," and said Hurd was paid his bonus for meeting certain business expectations set out by hp over a three-year period.

Former EDS employees also said only U.S.-based employees are suffering the massive salary cuts under Hewlett Packard and that foreign-based employees are not seeing reductions in their salaries. Hewlett Packard would not comment on this or if there are any plans to outsource jobs overseas.

The employees said in the end it's customers who'll suffer, customers who signed on with EDS before the company was bought by hp. They describe the mood of the employees as dismal, discouraged and defeated. Those who haven't gotten letters or emails warning of salary cuts expect them and one employee describes spending part of the day doing his job and part of his day looking for a new job.

As for the man who decided to speak up first, he's worried about having a job tomorrow. Even with a third of his salary gone, it's still a job in the same office he's had for more than a dozen years. Unless he can find a new one quickly, his only option is to show up for work.

"It's a slap in the face. That's the only way you can take it, is that it's a slap in the face," the man said.

First Published: Aug 4, 2009 10:44 PM PDT

My colleague adds the following in a comment on this site:

I am not from the Bay area, but where I come from, 'EDS, an HP Company' never did pay competitive salaries. They made up for it with a certain amount of personal flexibility and, as EDS, had engendered a great amount of loyalty among the staff. I read the statements lacking sympathy, and I think of my friends (I left of my own volition and went to a MUCH better scenario just a few short months ago) .... These people have suffered pay cut after pay cut, salaried staff being told that losing their coworkers and getting cut in pay was just the beginning; They are required to put in a mandatory 60 hour work week, while they struggle with less pay ... all for an account that works off solid contracts that have not budged. They seem to be paying the price for the less stable accounts. Local management is in tears as much as the staff. Every cut is one they have fought and could do nothing about. I truly believe that, for some reason I don't understand, HP wanted the EDS business without the EDS staff. This is one more incentive to any who are left to get OUT. The economy may be stabilizing and HP will eventually pay the price. Good, loyal people will be forced to go elsewhere. The market benefits HP could have received from purchasing EDS will go with them.

The People Be Damned

Paul Craig Roberts has captured the moment. Americans are losing their jobs to offshore outsourcing and imported replacement workers as a direct result of the "free trade" ideology embraced by political, media and corporate elites. Courageous individuals (such as Senators Grassley and Sanders) who seek justice for American workers are opposed by the overwhelming power of corporate money and organized lobbies. PCR's piece is lengthy but readers will be rewarded with gems like this: "The 'free market' shills on the payroll of the U.S. Chamber, NAM, and in economics departments and think tanks that are recipients of grants from transnational corporations are whores aligned with elites who are destroying the American work force." This sordid situation leaves many of us with the belief that nothing has changed with the election of Barack Obama...

CounterPUNCH

February 18, 2009

The People Be Damned

President of Special Interests

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The Bush/Obama bailout/stimulus plans are not going to work. Both are schemes hatched by a clique of financial insiders. The schemes will redistribute income and wealth from American taxpayers to the shyster banksters, who have destroyed American jobs, ruined the retirement plans of tens of millions of Americans, and worsened the situation of millions of people worldwide who naively trusted American financial institutions. The ongoing theft has simply been recast. Instead of using fraudulent financial instruments, the banksters are using government policy.

Michael Hudson captures the nature of the heist in CounterPunch (February 12):

“When it comes to cleaning up the Greenspan Bubble legacy by writing down homeowner mortgage debt, the Treasury proposal offers homeowners $50 billion – just [half of one percent] of the $10 trillion Wall Street bailout to date, and less than half the amount given to AIG to pay its hedge fund speculators on their derivative gambles. The Treasury has handed out $25 billion to each and every big bank, so just two of these banks alone got as much as the reported one-quarter of all homeowners in America suffering from Negative Equity on their homes and in need of mortgage renegotiation. Yet today’s economic shrinkage cannot be reversed without a recovery in consumer demand. The economy has lost the “virtual wealth” in higher-priced homes and the stock market, and must rely on after-tax earnings. But I see little concern for wage earners in the Treasury plan. Without debt relief, consumer spending and business investment will not recover.”

The big money men cannot conceive of anyone’s suffering except the mega-rich. If billions are not at stake, what is the problem? How can a family losing its house bring down the economy?

There was a time in America when the interests of elites were connected to those of ordinary Americans. Henry Ford said that he paid his workers good wages so they could buy his cars.

Today American corporations pay foreign workers low wages so CEOs can pay themselves multi-million dollar “performance” bonuses.

Congress has had a parade of CEOs, ranging from Bill Gates of MIcrosoft and IBM brass on down the line, to testify that they desperately need more H-1B work visas for foreign employees as they cannot find enough American software engineers and IT workers to grow their businesses. Yet, all the companies who sing this song have established records of replacing American employees with H-1B workers who are paid less.

Just the other day Microsoft, IBM, Texas Instruments, Sprint Nextel, Intel, Motorola, and scores of other corporations announced thousands of layoffs of the qualified American engineers who “are in short supply.”

IBM has offered to help to relocate its “redundant” but “scarce” American engineers to its operations in India, China, Brazil, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates at the salaries prevailing in those countries.

On January 28, USA Today reported: “In 2007, the last full year for which detailed employment numbers are available, 121,000 of IBM's 387,000 workers [31%] were in the U.S. Meanwhile, staffing in India has jumped from just 9,000 workers in 2003 to 74,000 workers in 2007.”

In order to penetrate and to serve foreign markets, US corporations need overseas operations. There is nothing unusual or unpatriotic about this. However, many US companies use foreign labor to manufacture abroad the products that they sell in American markets. If Henry Ford had used Indian, Chinese, or Mexican workers to manufacture his cars, Indians, Chinese and Mexicans could possibly have purchased Fords, but not Americans.

Senators Charles Grassley and Bernie Sanders offered an amendment to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bill that would prevent companies receiving bailout money from discharging American employees and replacing them with foreigners on H-1B visas.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, no longer an American institution, and immigration advocates, such as the American Immigration Lawyers Association, immediately went to work to defeat or to water down the amendments. Senator Grassley’s attempt to prevent American corporations from replacing American workers with foreigners on H-1B work visas in the midst of the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression was met with outrage from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an organization concerned solely with the multi-million dollar bonuses paid to American CEOs for reducing labor costs by offshoring American jobs or by replacing American employees with foreign guest workers.

On January 23 Senator Grassley wrote to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

“I am concerned that Microsoft will be retaining foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American employees when it implements its layoff plan. As you know, I want to make sure employers recruit qualified American workers first before hiring foreign guest workers. For example, I cosponsored legislation to overhaul the H-1B and L-1 visa programs to give priority to American workers and to crack down on unscrupulous employers who deprive qualified Americans of high-skilled jobs. Fraud and abuse is rampant in these programs, and we need more transparency to protect the integrity of our immigration system.

“Last year, Microsoft was here on Capitol Hill advocating for more H-1B visas. The purpose of the H-1B visa program is to assist companies in their employment needs where there is not a sufficient American workforce to meet their technology expertise requirements. However, H-1B and other work visa programs were never intended to replace qualified American workers. Certainly, these work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn.

“It is imperative that in implementing its layoff plan, Microsoft ensures that American workers have priority in keeping their jobs over foreign workers on visa programs.

“My point is that during a layoff, companies should not be retaining H-1B or other work visa program employees over qualified American workers. Our immigration policy is not intended to harm the American workforce. I encourage Microsoft to ensure that Americans are given priority in job retention. Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect these American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times.”

Senator Grassley is rightly concerned that recession layoffs will shield increased jobs offshoring and use of H-1B workers. On February 13, Pravda reported that “America has begun the initial steps to final outsourcing of its last dominant industry”--oil/gas and oil/gas services. Pravda reports that “as with other formerly dominant industries, such as light manufacturing, IT, textiles,” recession is “used as the knife to finally do in the workers.”

According to Pravda,

“IT is a prime example. The companies used the bust to lay off hundreds of thousands of tech workers around the US and Britain, citing low profits or debt. The public as a whole accepted this, as part of the economic landscape and protests were few, especially with a prospect of the situation turning around. However, shortly after the turn around in the economy, it became very clear that there would be no turn around in the IT employment industry. Not only were companies outsourcing everything they could, under the cover of the recession, they had shipped in tens of thousands of H-1B work visaed workers who were paid on the cheap.”

It is rare to find US Representatives and Senators, such as Grassley, who will take a stand against powerful special interests. Some do so inadvertently, forgetting that patriotism is no longer a characteristic of the American business elite. Hoping to stimulate American rather than foreign businesses, the House version of the economic stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, required that funds provided by the bill cannot be used to purchase foreign-made iron, steel, and textiles.

The Senate provision was more sweeping, mandating that all manufactured goods purchased with stimulus money be American-made.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Caterpillar, General Electric, other transnational corporations, and editorial writers whose newspapers are dependent on corporate advertising set out to defeat the buy American requirement. As far as these anti-American organizations are concerned, the stimulus bill has nothing to do with American jobs or the American economy. It only has to do with the special interest appetites that have the political power to rip off the American taxpayers. [see Manufacturing & Technology News, February 4, 2009]

Senator John McCain is their man. “Protectionism” exclaimed the man the Republicans wanted as president. McCain said the buy American provision would cause a second Great Depression. U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said that buying abroad was “economic patriotism.”

The American economic elite are hiding their treason to the American people behind “free trade.”

I want to say this as clearly as it can be said. The offshoring of American jobs is the anthesis of free trade. Free trade is based on comparative advantage. Jobs offshoring is an activity in pursuit of lowest factor cost--an activity that David Ricardo, the originator of the free trade theory, described as the betrayal of one’s own country in pursuit of “absolute advantage.”

The “free market” shills on the payroll of the U.S. Chamber, NAM, and in economics departments and think tanks that are recipients of grants from transnational corporations are whores aligned with elites who are destroying the American work force.

Obama has appointed to his National Economic Council blatant apologists for the offshoring of American jobs.

Possibly Obama loves the country that elevated him to its highest office. But his administration is populated with people whose loyalty does not extend beyond elites to the American people.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Obama Supports Outsourcing American Jobs

Ron Hira, college professor, author, scholar and IEEE-USA leader has published a devastating critique of Barack Obama's selection of pro-outsourcing advocates to high positions within his administration. As I cautioned people months ago, Barack Obama does not believe in the sort of change many of us seek: Obama is not the agent of "change we can believe in".

Opinion: The Obama administration promotes outsourcing

Ron Hira
(02/04/2009 9:30 AM EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213001145

We know from a recent EE Times survey that offshoring is the No. 1 career concern for EEs. The Obama Administration has been in office just a few weeks now, but we already know how it will address the offshoring of engineering jobs.

It will promote it.

EE Times, the Wall Street Journal and InformationWeek all recently published important stories on IBM's layoffs and the company's links to offshoring. IBM is now using the euphemism, "resourced actioned" to describe layoffs. The most remarkable aspect of the story was IBM's ability to take the Fifth Amendment on questions about the geographic distribution of layoffs, and even refusing to publicly state the number of U.S. workers it has.

Here's what the Journal published on Jan 27: "IBM Chairman Samuel Palmisano told workers in an e-mail last week that worldwide employment topped 400,000 at the end of 2008, up from 386,000 at the end of 2007. He didn't break out U.S. employment, and IBM spokesmen declined to do so."

IBM's unwillingness to publicly disclose its massive offshoring operations is no surprise, especially as it lobbies Congress and the Obama Administration for billions in taxpayer handouts as part of the economic stimulus package now being debated by Congress. What is remarkable is that the company is able to get away with it in the current job market with this President and this Congress.

InformationWeek reported on a new initiative by IBM, called Project Match, which is supposed to connect displaced U.S. workers with job openings in low-cost countries like India. But the catch here is, of course, that U.S. workers would be paid Indian salaries. How many U.S. workers can take those jobs and still hope to retire back in the U.S.? The answer is none.

So, where is President Obama, the politician who campaigned against outsourcing? The EE Times story that detailed the stealth layoffs and reactions of IBM workers, appeared on the same day that the President was chumming around with IBM's CEO Palmisano. Here's what President Obama said about why he invited to the White House Palmisano and nine other CEOs who are offshoring jobs:

"They make things, they hire people," the President said of the meeting participants. "They are on the front lines in seeing the enormous problems in the economy right now. Their ideas and their concerns have helped to shape our recovery package in order to get this economy back on track."

Can President Obama really be this naive? Or is it simply that he doesn't believe offshoring matters?

There is clear evidence that the latter is the case. On the very same day he was meeting with "CEOs [who] outsource American jobs"--a phrase he repeatedly and derisively used during his campaign, he named McKinsey's & Co.'s Diana Farrell to his National Economic Council, the inner circle of economic advisors in the White House. Farrell has done more to promote outsourcing than nearly anyone else in America.

Farrell was the lead author of the infamous "Offshoring: Is it a Win-Win Game?" Now she'll be operating at the highest levels of the Obama administration. Her phony "study" did more damage than any other in the debate over offshoring. And her propaganda was used to mislead the American public about the true impact of offshoring.

Moreover, Farrell's firm made millions of dollars consulting with companies, advising them to accelerate their offshoring. And she publicly made the rounds to convince policymakers and the public that offshoring was good for them and the country. It's also no coincidence that the IBM and Nasscom, the Indian IT outsourcing industry association, were major McKinsey clients. They benefited from McKinsey's lobbying as well as its consulting services.

This week (Feb. 3), President Obama nominated Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to be the next Commerce Secretary. Gregg is a staunch proponent of outsourcing and expanding the H-1B visa program, destroying even more job opportunities for American engineers.

During the campaign, then-Senator Obama pledged to put American workers ahead of corporate profits. Now we know that this was simply a bad joke. A joke that all of us, except the CEOs, will pay dearly for in the years ahead.

The larger issue though is why President Obama can get away with these inexcusable and hypocritical actions? It's really quite simple: American workers have no real representation in Washington. While unions, like Alliance@IBM are doing yeoman's work on labor issues, it's simply not enough because their ranks, and therefore their resources, are too small.

Think about it for a moment: Who represents American engineers' interests in Washington? Sam Palmisano? Diana Farrell? President Obama? Do you think the President even raised the issue of offshoring with Palmisano?

Professional societies like IEEE are global institutions and are unwilling to do what's necessary to lobby on behalf of its U.S. members. I know, I've been active in IEEE's policy activities for years.

It's time for each individual to do his or her part if real change on jobs is to be achieved. Our leaders, politicians, university presidents and CEOs have little or no interest in helping engineers. You must help yourself, and that means becoming politically active. The offshoring of U.S. jobs isn't a partisan issue; both Democratic and Republican politicians are actively working against your career interests.

The first step is to begin communicating with your elected representatives about your interests and concerns. It's as simple as writing an e-mail. Then begin to organize and communicate in larger numbers through your local institutions, whether it is a professional society like IEEE or your place of worship.

This is not a time to mourn, it's time to take action.

—Ron Hira is an assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and author of "Outsourcing America"

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...

Hillary Does Have Foreign Policy Experience -- in INDIA!!!

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's claims of foreign policy expertise and the insinuation that she is prepared to take "3 AM calls", I would like to support Sen. Clinton's claim that she does have real foreign policy experience which voters would do well to consider.

While Greg Craig, a former director of the State Department's Policy Planning Office rightly points out the exaggerations of Sen Clinton in a March 11 piece at Real Clear Politics, I am somewhat surprised that he did not take the opportunity to mention Sen. Clinton's close ties to India and the wealthy Indian Offshore Outsourcing business elites who have profited at the expense of American workers and American society -- the groups which Sen. Clinton claims she champions.

Of course, I have posted at considerable length on this subject in the past but I believe that Sen Clinton's close ties to Indian business elites should be mentioned. Sen. Clinton does indeed have foreign policy experience -- helping wealthy foreign business interests control American domestic policy in the areas of labor, trade and economics.

A picture is said to be worth a thousand words...

Hypocrisy in Ohio: Clinton & Obama Avoid Outsourcing Issue

Even while LexisNexis and parent company Reed Elsevier are making local, state wide, national and international news with plans for eliminating all possible white collar jobs in Ohio, both Clinton and Obama have been completely silent on the subject.


So far, Obama has used NAFTA as a club to hit at Clinton in Ohio. However, the 1,000 plus high tech and "back office" white collar jobs are seemingly "off the radar screen" for the press, the politicians and most people.


Of course, LexisNexis was the archtype information age corporation back in the 90s during the time that Hillary's hubby was busy twisting arms and buying votes to ram NAFTA through Congress. I well recall Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich lecturing us all on how we need to remake ourselves for the jobs of the information age.


Well, I "remade" myself. I became a software engineer at considerable financial expense and investment of time. I've even worked for several international "Fortune 500" corporations in "high profile" IT jobs where I've directly faced the offshoring and H-1b worker replacement issues.


And now, the hype surrounding the transition to an "information age" economy has mostly disappeared, replaced instead by euphemisms like "global economy" and "global competitiveness". As I've seen in my experiences, the "information age" jobs are being filled by lower cost foreigners at every possible opportunity.


In OHIO, though Obama and Clinton will NOT discuss it, the offshore outsourcing of manufacturing/industrial/"factory" jobs has been followed by widespread use of H-1b and L-1 guest worker replacement programs at well known OHIO corporations. Corporations such as (once "Fortune 500") NCR have followed the IBM model and moved *all* engineering/development work offshore.


Now, after years of having a large offshore component in partnership with Indian outsourcing companies such as HCL and Infosys *and* using many (foreign) H-1b guest workers directly and through contractors, Dayton-based but internationally known, LexisNexis is about to move all remaining Information Technology ("IT") and other "back office" white collar work offshore to INDIA. The Elsevier IT group in Dayton developing for and supporting Scopus and Science Direct online services is likewise targeted for offshoring.


Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that this information isn't making news... Obama and Clinton would both have too many hard questions to answer about their claims that education is the key to our economic prosperity...


I find it interesting that even as the middle class jobs situation is WORSE in Ohio now than it was 4 years ago, neither Obama nor Clinton even use the "O-words" -- offshoring, outsourcing and offshore outsourcing. I take this as nothing more than cynicism and hypocrisy. They posture about education being the panacea but enable the outsourcing with their support for "guest worker" programs used to displace some of the best educated and highest skilled American workers.


Following on is a recently piece from the Dayton Daily News re. the offshoring plans underway at RE and LN in metro-Dayton, OH.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/search/content/oh/story/business/2008/02/19/ddn021908reedweb.html

LexisNexis parent expected to announce cost cuts

By Thomas Gnau

Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis, which has some 3,000 employees in Miami Twp., will this week outline plans to cut costs across its divisions, London's Financial Times has reported.

Another British newspaper, the Telegraph, has reported that London-based Reed plans to cut more than 1,000 jobs over the next two years, most of them outside Britain .

The Anglo-Dutch company is expected to announce measures to save at least 100 million pounds a year, equivalent to 10 percent of the pre-tax profit the company is expected to announce Thursday, Feb. 21, the Times said. One British pound equaled about $1.95 in U.S. currency recently.

"We're not going to comment before the earnings release," David Kurt, a Chicago-based spokesman for LexisNexis, said Tuesday, Feb. 19.

In November, the company acknowledged that a "small number" of Dayton-area jobs will be outsourced. No definite number was given at the time, but a spokesman said then that a "small percentage" of the company's Miami Twp. work force will be affected.

At the time, a spokesman said LexisNexis' efforts to improve "operational efficiencies" will result in "an unknown number of positions being eliminated in our overall Dayton operations in 2008 and beyond."

LexisNexis has not warned township government that employee cuts are coming, said Gregory Rogers, assistant township administrator for Miami Twp. government. While he said that the company is "always making changes to their structures," the company has not advised the township of future changes.

LexisNexis is among the township's top three employers, Rogers said.

Holly Michael, a local LexisNexis spokeswoman, said she did not know how Reed cuts may "trickle down" to local LexisNexis operations and declined further comment.

"We shall be offering no comment on the recent press stories in the U.K. media about Reed Elsevier ahead of our annual results on Thursday," said Patrick Kerr, a Reed spokesman.

The Times said Reed Elsevier's savings are expected to be enacted in the next three years.

The paper also said Reed is expected to "centralize" back-office activities around its legal, business, science and medical divisions.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.

America Sours on Free Trade (DUH!)

The business class journalists at Fortune magazine who write for the corporate management class which reads Fortune have discerned that a large and growing majority of Americans (68%) don't support free trade. Of course, the business class journalists at Fortune slant the story in a most predictable manner evident at the outset with "The backlash against free trade is growing" in readers' browser title bars and links to the story from CNN.COM. Read the (slanted but still interesting) story HERE.

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.

The Lies at the End of the American Dream...

Economist and writer Paul Craig Robert unleashes another salvo on the Offshore Outsourcing lobbyists, CEOs and economists in his latest article, "The Lies at the End of the American Dream". Roberts marshals compelling evidence to support his dismal prediction that "in 20 years the US will have a third world work force engaged in domestic nontradable services". Goodbye middle class America and welcome to the Third World.

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.”