paying outsourcing level wages here at home- good or bad?

[Beaker]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Business/outsourcing_alternatives_040309.html

March 9— Inside a nondescript Cambridge, Mass., office building, the president of a new company that conducts Internet auctions thinks he has a better idea about outsourcing.

"I have a number of people I know who are unemployed in the tech community and to the degree of keeping jobs here, that's just better for everybody," said Jon Carson, CEO of CMarket.

When Carson started CMarket several months ago, a consultant urged him to send his computer programming jobs overseas to lower his costs.

That's because a programmer in the United States makes about $80,000 a year, but the same job overseas would cost only $40,000.

So Carson placed a help-wanted ad in The Boston Globe offering overseas wages for computer programmers. Within 48 hours, he had more than 100 résumés...

"I took a pay cut, but I needed a job," said Cari Collins, an experienced programmer, who couldn't find work until she responded to the ad and was hired by Carson...

It's keeping the jobs here in the U.S., but it may very well start bringing down the wages for even the jobs that are not in any danger of being outsourced-
So- all you IT people who are still working here at home, feeling content that your job is safe from outsourcing- can you afford to take a 50% pay cut?

Ask some union construction workers from 'right-to-work' states what happened to their wages and opportunities when 'r-t-w' became law...

[nickinSTL]

1. pay cuts

Yeah, well, the lower wages may suck, but my fiancee would take half her previous paycheck in an instant, after 2 years of unemployment.

No jobs=no economic recovery

[ramapo]

2. Race to the Bottom

Lower wages across the board are almost inevitable due to the offshore competition.

Now will prices go down to match? Will health care and housing costs drop?

The average worker has no bargaining power.

[pnb]

3. I'm OK with it

What this man is doing is basically paying the market wage. If that many people are applying at $40,000, why would he pay more?

[leesa]

5. You're OK with it? Well, then be OK with it when your wage drops down too

Because as they go, so go you. Their houses will go back to the bank or to rich folks and fewer and fewer people will own houses, food prices aren't about to go down. You will have no earning power. This is the whole plan and Americans walked right into the trap.

[pnb]

9. If my wage goes down...

...because I am not worth the money, I may not like but it certainly would not be an unfair situation. And if their houses go back to the bank, so be it. Its not exactly as if they will have to be homeless or anything...if anything, it could help lower home prices.

Is there supposed to be some sort of special IT minimum wage or something?

[Zero Gravitas]

12. Indian cost of living

Its one thing to pay Indian wages to Indians, but why is that fair to Americans who have a much higher cost of living. There are people willing to work for lower wages because the alternative is long term unemployment. They are in that situation because "American" companies would rather sell out American middle class workers to line the pockets of a few already wealthy people at the top who want to live a lavish American lifestyle. They are able to do so because of so-called "free trade". They want to move jobs, goods and capital around, but they are unwilling to allow free movement of people. I say until they are willing to allow unlimited no questions asked immigration to and from India there should be no unlimited no questions asked movement of jobs either.

I don't want my future to be decided by the bottom line of some giant corporation that has no loyalty other than to the bank balances of its investors. The ultimate goal of society should be to maximize the well being of ALL who contribute to it, not to maximize the wealth of a few at the expense of the people who actually do the work.

[pnb]

14. Fair?

Fairness is not even an issue here. Again I ask, should there be some special IT minimum wage in this country?

None of us are entitled to get paid any amount we want. If my boss found someone who could do my job just as well as I do and who was willing to do it for half the money I earn, he's be an idiot to keep me there.

[AG78]

16. So then...

you're alright with everyone being nothing more than an expendable number?

[pnb]

18. It's not how I would personally do things

I'm not in a position to hire or fire but I do believe in the credo that a happy employee is a good employee, and I'm glad my CEO feels the same way.

I've been in the position when I've been an expendable number and I agree that it sucks as well. I've made it a point to work with smaller companies since then.

But regardless of what I'm personally OK with or not is immaterial. Its not, nor should it be, my decision to tell an employer how much to value their employees. People keep commenting at me but ignoring my question so I shall ask yet again...should there be some special IT minimum wage?

[Fovea]

13. Will the pay go down for the CEO's too?

Because if there is a class of American worker that has not justified their pay, it would have to be the Management.

[pnb]

15. That's a separate issue...

...and one I'm not to concerned with. I don't know what my CEO makes and quite frankly, I don't care what he makes. I concern myself with what I make and that's it.

[laruemtt]

4. we're being put in a position

of having to beg for scraps. not our america at all.

[Virginian]

6. Someone is making quite a profit if they are charging $40k

for an Indian programmer. That programmer will get less than half of that.

If we are to be truly competitive and try to work at their wages, we cannot live in this country. Their going wage for a professional job is less than welfare pays in this country. It is well below our poverty level.

[Suziq]

7. This IS the Whole Point . . .

of outsourcing - an attempt LOWER wages in the US. :grr:

[efhmc]

8. The costs of goods and services in other countries are not the same

so for many those horribly paid jobs are a "living" wage. Here it is just another way to keep us under the thumb of the obscenely rich.

[kcwayne]

10. It will still be outsourced at 40K by most companies

The going rate for a progammer in India is 5-8K per year. Call center operators in India make $9 per day (that' right a DAY).
Accountants run 4-5K per year.

That's how low we have to go.

This is what is wrong with capitalism. Companies are focusing on reducing labor costs to the point where no one world wide can buy products. This not only hurts people whose only capital is their labor, it hurts captialists in the long run because they are destroying the very markets they need to sell in to.

We should not be focusing on lowering labor costs. We should be campaigning for wages of our trading partners to be lifted, and for those countries to implement environmental and labor safety practices so that the full cost of doing business becomes more balanced throughout the world.

[Bandit]

11. Buy American or suck hind tit.

:shrug:

[Mountainman]

17. Wages in this country have to be enough to live here.

I use to live near Santa Barbara where a lot of people were making minimum wage working in hotels and as servants to the wealthy. Those people could not even afford the cheapest apartment. They had to live in their cars if they wanted to eat.

Now the owners of the hotels and the wealthy could afford to pay a living wage but there was no pressure to do so.

What we have is a powerless working class that must take what they can get. The only way to do something about this is to unite so that the workers can negotiate from strength.

There needs to be international worker's organizations. Without these there will only be the wealthy ruling class and the working poor. Your children will live worse off than you do. Is that what you want?

[Malva Zebrina]

19. I agree with you one hundred per cent

You are the first person to come up with a fair and equitable solution that gives back the power to the people. What flies around as a solution to this problem is to give corporations tax incetives so that hiring American workers would not affect the bottom profit line. Our representatives want to go the way of giving more tax incentives to companies here but--that is not going to help the worker--they will, believe me, find ways to screw the worker anyway they can. I am sick of adoration and corporate welfare tax breaks being given to those who would abandon their workers at the drop of a dime.

Labor needs bargaining power. We do not have it now. We are weak and vulnerable. Someone saw to it that it worked out that way.