American Techno-Politics

FastCompany Biased; Marcus Courtney debates the issues

FastCompany declares that "Offshoring is good for America" despite evidence to the contrary. I clearly believe that Marcus Courtney of Washtech, a Washington based IT union, who argued against offshoring made a better case against the trend than Ashok Soota, Cofounder and managing director of MindTree Consulting in Bangalore, did in favor of the trend which he would like to call "OneSourcing".

Regardless of what type of spin you would like to put on offshoring, what is clear is that there has been a net loss of IT jobs in the United States. These jobs require high skill and are an important factor our nation's ability to compete and innovate.

Marcus Courtney advocates that we follow the lead of India, who have seen rapid growth in their IT services the past 3 years.

According to Marcus Courtney "one issue that is very different between India and the U.S. is the questions around market access and export driven policies. India has a national policy around IT that it be export driven. Most of the software services generated in India are exported. It is not consumed in the domestic market. In the U.S., what is happening is that services that were once done in the U.S. domestic market are increasingly getting done overseas only to be imported back into the U.S. Our national policy should be different. (...) The U.S. should follow India's lead in creating a national policy around tech that just doesn't let market outcomes dictate everything. This can not only promote more fair competition but also avoid a race to the bottom in core labor standards."

Although we expect companies like FastCompany to side with Indian corporations over the interests of America, it is still unfortunate that they make such unfounded claims.

posted by R. Lawson @ 8:16 PM