Hypocrisy in Action

Or "Hypocrisy Through Inaction"

I work as a help desk analyst. You could consider my position to be in the IT or tech industry, I guess. I'm not interested in labels unless they translate directly into a better salary.

So, you can imagine that the outsourcing of tech jobs has been an item that catches my eye on a regular basis.

Like with manufacturing jobs, technology jobs apparently can be done abroad for a much cheaper price. IT companies send jobs abroad either to increase their profit margin (9 times out of 10) or to be able to bid more competitively against other companies that have already outsourced to Second and Third World nations. Executive compensation doesn't get cut or see their jobs outsourced; management often stays on even when their whole department is outsourced to Banglore, India.

As referenced in another one of my posts here (Congress Approves $388B Spending Measure), Congress spent time approving an additional 20,000 work visas for tech workers to come to America for jobs and didn't attempt to restore overtime to the many white collar workers the Bush administration has taken it away from.

But some other things they failed to do are even more important:

• didn't pass any legislation to discourage the outsourcing of American jobs (in any industry).
• didn't remove the tax benefits that encourage American companies to send jobs outside of the country.
• didn't pass a bill that would have demanded that federal government work be done by American companies that will not outsource the work to facilities outside of this country.

Not to use this quote too much...but:

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

First, thousands upon thousands of manufacturing jobs were moved outside of America (most profound is that no television set is made in America these days). I didn't sit and take notice: I had no intention of ever working at a plant on anything. I said little or nothing. Then, customer service jobs were sent over to India, but didn't take too much notice as I never plan to go back to such work. I said little or nothing. But then my company sent the high tech jobs in my career path to India, which woke me up. I stood up, took notice, and decried the move to anyone who would listen...but who was left to truly listen?

This country stopped supporting its unions regularly after Reagan stomped a mudhole in them. Not long after, the "Made in America" sentiment seemed to start to die a slow death. The best you can do to get people riled up about the outsourced companies being outside of US jurisdiction, meaning private information could be used for identity theft with little legal repercussion.

So here we are...with no one caring about where this economy is going; namely, fleeing to other countries.