HRC: Say TaTa to Your Jobs! (She Boasts About Bringing an Outsourcing Firm to Buffalo, NY)

[Stephanie]

Gee thanks, Hill.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/30/2857 /

BUFFALO, N.Y. - To many labor unions and high-tech workers, the Indian giant Tata Consultancy Services is a serious threat - a company that has helped move U.S. jobs to India while sending thousands of foreign workers on temporary visas to the United States.

So when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) came to this struggling city to announce some good news, her choice of partners was something of a surprise.

Joining Tata Consultancy’s chief executive at a downtown hotel, Clinton announced that the company would open a software development office in Buffalo and form a research partnership with a local university. Tata told a newspaper that it might hire as many as 200 people.

***

The Tata deal shows the difficulty of proving concrete benefits to U.S. workers from the visa system. Since 2003, the year its Buffalo office opened, Tata and its affiliates have sought permission to bring more than 1,600 foreign high-tech workers to the state, including at least 495 to the upstate region and 45 to Buffalo, according to government data. Tata has brought additional workers into the country under a second visa program whose numbers have not been disclosed.

Some U.S. worker organizations say Clinton cannot claim to support American workers if she is also helping Indian outsourcing companies and proposing more worker visas.

“It’s just two-faced,” said John Miano, founder of the Programmers Guild, one of several high-tech worker organizations that have sprung up as outsourcing has expanded. “We see her undermining U.S. workers and helping the offshoring business, and then she comes back to the U.S. and says, ‘I’m concerned about your pain.’ ”

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/30hillary.htm

---snip---

'The event signaled that Clinton, who portrays herself as a fighter for American workers, had aligned herself with Indian American business leaders and Indian companies feared by the labor movement,' writes LAT staff writer Peter Wallsten.

The report goes on to note that wealthy Indian Americans -- 'many of them business leaders with close ties to their native country and an interest in protecting outsourcing laws and expanding access to worker visas' -- have thrown their weight behind Hillary. The Chatwals' fundraiser for Hillary is also mentioned, without the New York hotelier's name.

And it underlines that the Buffalo deal, a sort of showpiece achievement for Hillary, who stresses that globalisation (read outsourcing) helps everyone, has generated just 10 jobs.

'As for the research deal Clinton announced with the state university, school administrators say that three attempts to win government grants with Tata for health-oriented research were unsuccessful, and no projects are imminent,' the report adds.

Senator Clinton, it seems, is aware of the criticism. 'Outsourcing is a problem,' the Los Angeles Times quoted her as saying during a Democratic candidates' debate in June.

The LA Times report adds that a report by two American Senators named Tata as one of the biggest users of foreign-worker visas in the US -- proof, the Senators said, that Tata was pushing American jobs to foreign workers.

[OhioChick]

1. A Case of "I Was Before it Before I Was Against It."...I Presume?

Now Hillary too blasts outsourcing
February 22, 2008 11:55 IST


http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/feb/22bpo1.htm

[Stephanie]

11. God she's despicable.

I just get so sick of it. Hey Hill, how about we stop giving a penny of our money to any SENATOR who ships a job out of NEW YORK???

===============================================

". . . we are going to rid the tax code of these loopholes and giveaways. We're going to stop giving a penny of your money to anybody who ships a job out of Texas, Ohio or anywhere else to another country," Hillary said during a debate with Obama at University of Texas in Austin.

Hillary, who had in the past refused to join the anti-outsourcing bandwagon, has been perceived as a fence-sitter on the issue till now.

Taking a cue from Obama, who has been fiercely opposing outsourcing, the 60-year-old, who is banking on March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas to revive her fading campaign, appeared to be joining the hardliners in an effort to attract the blue-collared workers.

===============================================

[Dems Will Win]

18. Go here to find out more everyone. We need to PUMP this baby UP!!

http://bp2.blogger.com/_d9PxlbCXrxA/RuyouHU0hII/AAAAAAAAAAc/eB1_hnP758g/s200/Hillary-Tata+Smooch.jpg

http://modernpatriot.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

"She touted how she brought Tata to Buffalo – and in the meantime Tata is one of the biggest body shops in America,” bringing cheap foreign labor to this country while exporting other jobs to India, said John Bauman, founder of the Connecticut- based Organization for the Rights of American Workers."

"In its last fiscal year, nevertheless, Tata — which reported revenues of $4.1 billion — ranked as the top Indian exporter of software and services this year, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies."

“What she did was really pretty dumb from an economic development point of view,” said Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and the author of “Outsourcing America.” “Tata destroys a lot more American jobs than it created Buffalo.”

[Stephanie]

25. Thanks for the photo!

I was looking for that. Please send to Obama.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. That Was The Old Hillary

Polling data changes - get over it already.

[Stephanie]

3. You're so right.

I forgot to check the direction of the wind.

[ChromeFoundry]

4. Hmmm....I heard 10 jobs to Buffalo

"Clinton Says “Outsourcing Does Work Both Ways.” Crain’s New York Business wrote, “Mrs. Clinton maybe motivated by a desire to uphold the free trade legacy of the Clinton years. <…> In an appearance on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, she boasted about attracting 10 jobs to New York from India-based Tata Consulting. When Mr. Dobbs inquired if she had understood the degree to which Tata, which helps U.S. companies outsource, wasstealing American jobs, Mrs. Clinton rejoined: ‘They’ve actually brought jobs to Buffalo. Outsourcing does work both ways.’”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf

[Stephanie]

8. Oh, so if you're an out of work programmer, you can thank HRC & Tata Consultancy

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Is Famous For Pioneering The Business Practice Of Off-shoring. The
San Jose Mercury News wrote, “TCS, however, will go down in the annals of offshoring as the original hightech
body shop. Starting in the early 1990s, TCS blanketed the American landscape with legions of itinerant
software programmers from India. <…> Tata pioneered an industry that eventually evolved into the dynamo of
offshoring, or sending work to cheap labor markets overseas. <…> Tata’s methods have not been popular among
U.S. technology workers, however, who complain guest workers suppress local wages and offshoring takes
good jobs overseas.”

[madrchsod]

5. she`s the best friend india has in the senate

[Stephanie]

10. Isn't that nice.

Solutions, eh? Buffalo needs jobs, she'll bring jobs to Buffalo! Jobs for the imported Indian HB1 workers, that is!

[OhioChick]

12. She Really Is!

U.S. Senate India Caucus
by Aziz Haniffa in Washington DC (March 31, 2004)

A new bipartisan organisation called 'Friends of India' has been formed in the US Senate, similar to the 10-year-old Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans in the US House of Representatives.

This is the first time in the history of the US Senate that a country-focused caucus has been constituted and announcing its formation was the driving force behind the move Senator John Cornyn, a freshman Republican Senator from Texas who recently visited India.

Cornyn, who was the keynote speaker at the Second Annual Capitol Hill Gala Dinner of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin on Tuesday night following AAPI's two-day legislative conference, said co-chairing 'Friends of India' in the US Senate would be Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

He said that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican and Minority Leader Thomas Dachle,South Dakota Democrat had also agreed to become members of the Friends of India group and so had 18 other Senators from both sides of the aisle.

http://www.usindiafriendship.net/congress1/senatecaucus/senatecaucus.htm

[dflprincess]

6. I remember an article in the New York Times several years ago

about how economically depressed Erie County is. It stuck with me because I lived near Buffalo when I was a kid (just up the Transit from Tonawanda and Lockport as Stephanie Miller would say) back when the steel plants and Ford plant were still going strong.

This sure doesn't sound like something the area needs.

[Cha]

7. More of the

two faces of hil..at least.

[Stephanie]

9. The Two Faces of Hillary

[antigop]

13. She's co-chair of the Senate India caucus. The other co-chair is John Cornyn. n/t

[provis99]

14. funny how these programmers were all libertarian, free-enterprisers

in the 1990's, when salaries and IT careers were in high demand, but when the free-market decides to outsource the jobs of these overpaid whiners, suddenly they're crying about unfair competition. Tough luck, libertarian lovers. No sympathy from me.

[Stephanie]

15. First they came for the libertarian programmers, but I said nothing...

because I was not a libertarian programmer.

[DefenseLawyer]

23. Wow. That's kinda of a bitter take.

Did a computer programmer kill your whole family or something? Just out of curiosity, is your vocation?

[NYPat]

16. Buffaloians can judge for themselves

She was reelected as our senator. And she recently won the primary here. She went door to door to campaign for an underdog Brian Higgins(D) against the big republican machine and he now represents my district in congress. You may wish for her eternal suffering but I'd keep her as my senator if this doesn't work out.

[Stephanie]

17. Considering she spent $40M, she should have won bigger.

Her results are not impressive considering the way she outspent her opponents.

http://www.elections.state.ny.us/portal/page?_pageid=35,1,35_8301:35_8306&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

2006 GENERAL
Erie County - Clinton: 152,721 Spencer: 77,310
STATEWIDE - Clinton: 2,698,931 Spencer: 1,212,902

2006 PRIMARY
Erie County - Clinton: 39490 Tasini: 8510
STATEWIDE - Clinton: 640955 Tasini: 124999


http://opensecrets.org/races/summary.asp?cycle=2006&id=NYS1

2006 RACE: NEW YORK SENATE

Hillary Clinton (D)*
(67% of vote
Raised: $51,567,732
Spent: $40,828,991
Cash on hand: $11,021,087
Last Report: 12/31/2006


John Spencer (R)
(31% of vote)
Raised: $5,849,610
Spent: $5,660,688
Cash on hand: $188,919
Last Report: 12/31/2006


Jonathan Tasini (D)
Candidate for 2006 New York Senate Race
Total Receipts: $246,806
Total Spent: $247,835
Cash on Hand: $7,118
Debts: $43,244
Date of last report: December 31, 2006

[NYPat]

19. Just representing a Buffaloian's opinion

I'm just a constituent, giving my opinion and observation. I'm a born and bred Buffaloian who thought your representation didn't tell the whole story. I don't have time to play dueling statistics or Tim Russert gotcha with you. Just my perspective, if anyone cares to consider it.

[Stephanie]

21. It's not dueling statistics, it's election results

You're a Buffaloian who likes Clinton. That's fine. But she did not bring you the jobs she promised. She brought you 10 jobs, 10 people whose job it is to outsource everybody else's jobs. If you're okay with that then I don't know what to tell you.

[Deja Q]

24. We would love to hear more on your point of view and "whole story".

If you don't have the time, forgive us if we don't believe you?

We'll play the game.

Will you?

[Zynx]

22. There are diminishing returns to money spent.

For example, if I spent 3 billion in Wisconsin I would expect that I should win, but I fully expect my Republican opponent would get 35-40% of the vote due to how solidly Republican some people are.

[OhioChick]

20. Informative Site:

Since 1985, over 17 million visas have been issued to allow aliens to work in the United States. These nonimmigrant visas, or NIV, are company sponsored visas that use a variety of different names including H-1B, H-2A, H-2B, J-1, L-1, and TN.


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In the year 2001, 9 out of every 10 new job openings for computer/IT were taken by H-1Bs, and despite record unemployment the INS issued 312,000 visas in 2002.


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By the year 2003 the total number of H-1B visas for high-tech workers issued was greater than the total number of high-tech jobs eliminated. Negative job growth in Computer/IT for U.S. citizens can be directly correlated with the huge influx of H-1B visa holders. If it wasn't for H-1B the unemployment rate for Computer/IT workers would be 0%.


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H-1B is used to import workers for jobs that American employers claim can't be filled in the "tight American labor market". Their claim is a lie because there are more than enough Americans to fill these jobs. L-1 visas have no yearly quota and may one day surpass H-1B as a means of importing skilled workers.


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NIVs such as H-2A and H-2B are being used to import blue collar and agricultural workers and J-1 visas are used by educational and governmental institutions to import foreign workers. TN (NAFTA) visas are used import Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the United States.

http://www.jobdestruction.com/shameh1b/

[Stephanie]

26. That's great, thanks.

Tata, Hill!