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Union announces support for Trakas’ Ohio Jobs First offshoring bill
April 7, 2004 - OCSEA leaders said today at a news conference that the union strongly supports a new bill by State Representative Jim Trakas that would limit state and local government involvement with sending jobs out of the country. Dubbed the Ohio Jobs First bill, the Trakas measure would also provide the first set of Ohio consumer protections related to offshoring.

“State jobs don’t belong in India or Philippines or even Canada,” said OCSEA President Ron Alexander. “We have enough problems providing jobs for Ohioans. We simply shouldn’t be using Ohio taxpayers to pay for salaries in other nations.”

Alexander warned that Ohio might be on the verge of an outsourcing explosion that will give public worker jobs to companies that operate in countries where wages are low. “Just this January, we had the Convergys Company trying to orchestrate its takeover of state government’s human resource services. Convergys is one of the nation’s leading offshoring outfits. Most recently, we had HB 439 introduced that would mandate even more outsourcing. And, Ohio is one of the few states that doesn’t - yet - offshore its food stamp operations.”

Alexander said the picture for government information technology work was even grimmer when it comes to offshoring. “A recent study estimates the outsourcing of state and local government technology contracts, alone, will grow from $10 billion in 2003 to $23 billion in 2008. Another study estimates that 10 percent of all computer services and software jobs will move overseas by the end of the year. Any work that is digital is ripe for export,” said Alexander.

Buy American  Trakas’ bill would ban state contracts with vendors who don’t perform the work in the U.S. The bill would also prohibit public subsidies to companies that have been involved with offshoring.

Alexander said another example of Convergys’ behavior illustrates the need for Trakas’ bill. “Convergys exists for one reason – to offshore jobs. In other words, it is a net destroyer of U.S. jobs. It’s the company that recently shafted Toledo by shutting down one of its call centers and shipping the work to Canada. Yet the State of Ohio just gave Convergys a $140 million subsidy. That just doesn’t make sense,” said Alexander.

Consumer Protections  The bill also contains important offshoring-related consumer protections. One provision would prohibit the transfer of consumer information to foreign countries unless authorized by the consumer. Another would require that call centers disclose to users the physical location of the where the customer service specialist works.

OCSEA represents 37,000 state and other public employees in a variety of blue collar, regulatory, skilled trades, clerical, technical and professional fields. It is an affiliate of the 1.3 million members American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

See Related

Summary - Ohio Jobs First Act (HB 459).pdf

Proposed offshoring legislation (HB 459).pdf

About HB 459 Sponsor, State Representative Jim Trakas (R - OH 17th)

Issues: Jobs & Offshoring materials

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