Source:
Economic Times India9 Feb 2009, 0012 hrs IST, Pankaj Mishra, ET Bureau
BANGALORE: As global tech firms such IBM, Microsoft and EDS-HP seek to trim payrolls by slashing jobs in the US and Europe to cope with a worsening economic slump, information technology workers and unions are taking a more militant stance on the sensitive issue of offshoring.
These unions or employee associations are aggressively questioning plans to send more work to cheaper locations such as India, and are pushing for more jobs in the US.
Microsoft, which announced first job cuts in its history, apart from IBM, is among those facing a backlash from technology worker unions and policymakers. Alliance IBM, a union of technology workers at the world's biggest software services company, has been running a campaign against the company's proposed 2,800 job cuts announced recently.
Washington Alliance of Technology Workers is also among many such organisations in the US running such a campaign. “The Alliance is strongly urging IBM not to go forward with a new round of job cuts and to stop the off-shoring of US workers’ jobs,”Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the Alliance, said in a statement. IBM employs over 70,000 professionals in India, and has plans to increasingly serve its global customers from the country.
Consulting group Challenger, Gray and Christmas said last month that electronics, computer and telecommunications companies in the US have cut their workforce by around 186,955 professionals in 2008, up almost 75% from 2007. The move comes at a time when joblessness is hitting record highs.
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