Tech labor union to step up anti-outsourcing efforts

A labor union that counts as members tens of thousands of IT workers in the U.S. plans to increase its efforts to combat the displacement of jobs from offshore outsourcing.

The International Federation of Technical and Professional Engineers (IFPTE) got approval from its delegates last week to lobby the U.S. Congress harder for laws and measures that will protect technical jobs from escaping abroad due to offshore outsourcing.

"The outsourcing issue is alarming for us. A lot of people are getting laid off because of outsourcing," said Matthew Biggs, the union's legislative and political director, on Monday. "It's a major thing for our union."

The IFPTE has a total membership of about 80,000 workers, of which about 50,000 are IT professionals, he said. Affiliated to the AFL-CIO, the IFPTE is the largest labor union in the U.S. for technical workers, such as scientists and engineers, he said. Most of its members are in the U.S., although about 6,000 are in Canada, where the union plans to increase its presence, he said.

The IFPTE would like the U.S. government to tighten the requirements for granting work visas to foreign technical workers and to provide incentives for U.S. companies not to outsource technical work overseas, he said. In the past three years, U.S. companies have laid off "tens of thousands" of professional white-collar professionals and sent the work abroad, the union said in a statement Friday after the close of its tri-annual convention.

The IFPTE delegates approved a resolution regarding this issue that reads in part: "The IFPTE opposes outsourcing, privatization and deregulation that costs North American workers their jobs and their communities." The resolution further pledges that the union will lobby against promoters of privatization of jobs, outsourcing and deregulation of industries.

The U.S. started 2003 with about 10.3 million IT workers, according to estimates from the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA). The ITAA, a trade group representing U.S. IT vendors, in May mentioned offshore outsourcing as a factor in what it forecast would a "soft" IT job market in the U.S. this year.

Due to the increasing popularity of IT offshore outsourcing, one out of every 10 jobs within U.S.-based IT vendors and IT service providers will move abroad by year-end 2004, said market researcher Gartner Inc. last week. The rate will be one in 20 within user companies, Gartner said.

Offshore outsourcing refers to the provision of services from outside of the client's home country. For example, a U.S. company that outsources its network management to a services provider in India would be engaging in offshore outsourcing. Companies outsource IT work abroad in order to lower the contracted services' costs. The lower costs result from lower wages paid to workers abroad. Gartner has called offshore outsourcing "an irreversible trend."