| Lobbyists fight protecting american jobs from offshoring { March 9 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1078381641983&p=1012571727088http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1078381641983&p=1012571727088
Lobbyists enter fray over export of US jobs By Dan Roberts in New York Published: March 9 2004 19:25 | Last Updated: March 9 2004 19:25 US companies are failing to make themselves heard, despite a growing lobbying campaign, on the controversy surrounding outsourcing as executives shy away from one of the fiercest battlegrounds of the US election.
Trade organisations and lobbyists acting for the hard-hit information technology industry are stepping up their campaign in Washington after losing a key Senate vote last week that symbolises the rising political backlash against the so-called "offshoring" of American jobs.
But those involved in the campaigns concede that persuading member companies to take a public stance on the subject is increasingly difficult.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association Of America, said: "We have been very vigorous on this issue but companies themselves don't want to be visible because they want people like me to catch the bullets instead."
Instead, it is foreign companies that are most active in trying to be heard. Executives from Infosys, one of the pioneers of business process outsourcing in India, will be in New York on Thursday to symbolically preside over the opening of trading at the Nasdaq stock exchange.
And next week, Kiran Karnik, president of India's National Association of Software and Service Companies will also host a lunch in New York on the "Myths and Realities of IT Outsourcing".
Some business lobbyists believe the best that companies can do is try to shift the debate away from outsourcing and back to discussing general policies - including free trade - for making US business more competitive.
"We are trying to help our CEOs understand the right way to communicate about these issues," said Tita Freeman, director of communications at the Business Roundtable, which is part of a new grouping called Economic Growth and American Jobs Coalition. The group is launching its website this week.
"We are not asking them to sit down with Lou Dobbs [the campaigning CNN presenter] and have a one-on-one, but when they are talking about their company's performance they can help by explaining how important world-wide sourcing is to their competitiveness."
"Nobody wants to be singled out anymore," added the public affairs spokesman at one of the five biggest US IT companies. "There is also a big political void because everyone is looking for a way to shield themselves from this and there are lots of Republicans willing to jump on the bandwagon."
The Computer Systems Policy Project, another leading Washington lobby group, led the way in January with a report called "Choose To Compete", backed by Carly Fiorina of HP and Craig Barrett of Intel.
But Ms Fiorina was severely criticised for saying: "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." Since then, many CEOs have preferred to direct their energies towards newspaper opinion pieces and seminars with Washington opinion formers rather than risk public speeches or TV appearances.
When CEOs do speak out, the results are often scarcely reported. Last week Sam Palmisano, IBM chief executive, launched a $25m fund called the Human Capital Alliance, to help retrain employees who lose their jobs to outsourcing. "It is not appropriate for the American ethos to wish ill will on countries simply because they are trying to improve the standards of living of their people," he said. But this was largely ignored in the press.
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