Offshoring is the business practice of moving work overseas, either by subcontracting with other companies or by relocating the entire operations. Intel has moved the R&D for its Pentium replacement to India. Boeing has moved software development to India. Tax returns, home loans, accounting, call centers, are rapidly moving out of the U.S. Unless your jobs is "glued down" - such as restaurant worker or barber - your job is at risk. And even if your career is safe, you will likely be impacted by the overall economic impact on the U.S. economy.

Offshoring has turned deadly. When Bank of America forced 1000 Americans to train their foreign replacements, it was too much for employee Kevin Flanagan, who committed suicide in the Bank's parking lot in Concord, California. (Programmers Guild joined the Labor Day 2003 Bank of America Protest.)

Offshoring advocates such as McKinsey are releasing false studies purporting that the U.S. economy benefits by sending jobs overseas. Programmer's Guild rebuts this study here. Such studies ignore the trade deficit implications, and presume that the displaced Americans are freed up to do even higher skilled jobs.

In a March 2004 MSNBC article Dr. Catherine Mann of the Institute for International Economics made the outrageous claim that there is no question that shipping jobs overseas creates even more jobs in the long run. But none of IIE's 30 researchers would explain their claim when challenged. Nonetheless, it is these professional liars that get press coverage and influence legislation.

When a California Senate subcommittee held a hearing on bills to stem the offshoring of jobs, the Programmer's Guild was there to testify in favor of protection.

Mike Emmons was force to train his foreign replacement at Siemens, and now hosts an outstanding website www.outsourcecongress.org that provides video clips of offshoring news.

(Also see Programmers Guild offshoring documents and CWA Local 4250 Outsourcing page.)