Doubletalk from Indiana State Senator Drozda
Doubletalk from Indiana State Senator Drozda
Date: Friday, December 05, 2003 3:14 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
By now many of you have seen a variation of this email message:
Indiana State Senator Jeff Drozda is co-writing legislation
in Indiana to put an end to outsourced off-shored projects
with taxpayer money.
Senator Drozda needs your personal experience letter regarding
the H1B/L1 visas and/or outsourcing. Don't delay, they are
working on this Indiana State bill RIGHT NOW. Please forward
this e-mail to others. his e-mail is S21@IN.GOV
If you email Drozda, don't thank him, complain to him! That's because
he is just another politician that speaks out of both sides of his
mouth.
Drozda begins with a patriotic sounding statement to protect American
Jobs against nonimmigrant workers:
A U.S. state legislator on Tuesday said he was optimistic a law he
proposed to bar non-U.S. workers from working on state computer
contracts would pass next year.
If his first sentence sounded too good to be true, it was! That's
because he qualifies his first statement this second one:
Meanwhile, Indiana's Drozda said he'll revise his proposal to permit
as much as 20 percent of state work to be handled by non-citizens.
Drozda's doubletalk could be missed by most readers, especially if they
don't consider the impact of replacing 20% of the state workforce with
nonimmigrants.
<<< Let's analyze what Drozda wants to do in Indiana with Indiana jobs.
According to the Census Bureau (stats below), Indiana has about 234,916
state employees. If Drozda is allowed to betray Indiana and set a 20%
replacement maximum, over 46,000 H-1Bs and L-1s will be allowed to take
state jobs away from American citizens!
Drozda's 20% rule could devastate Computer/IT workers in Indiana. To
analyze the potential damage, it's necessary to understand that the
total computer/IT employment is such a small percentage of Indiana's
state workforce that they don't categorize it, so I assume that it's
covered in the category "Central Admin" that employs 5,593 people
(census data at the bottom of newsletter).
If Drozda replaced the entire IT department with nonimmigrants, there
will still be over 40,000 more H-1Bs and L-1s he can use to replace
state workers.
It's anyone's guess what other types of state workers will be due for
replacement by NIVs, but if Drozda follows corporate trends he will
target Indiana state employees that make relatively high salaries -
with the exception of his cronies who will probably get bonuses for
saving the state so much money.
By using the same census data, it can be determined that Indiana's
trash collectors earn about $28,000 a year. Perhaps the next time
Indiana state residents have a trash pickup, they should start telling
their "sanitation engineers" that if Drozda has his way, Indiana might
use H-1Bs or L-1 contractors to drive their garbage trucks.
After Drozda replaces all his computer and sanitation engineers he will
still have about 39,000 more H-1Bs to hire. If you call him or email
him, ask what he has in mind for this huge influx of nonimmigrants, and
ask him why he is so anxious to increase the unemployment rate in
Indiana.
Jeff Drozda's website:
http://www.in.gov/legislative/senate_republicans/homepages/s21/
Indiana State Senator, District 21
200 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 232-9400
(800) 382-9467
his e-mail is S21@IN.GOV
http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2003/12/02/rtr1166865.html
US tech services providers mull offshore response
Reuters, 12.02.03, 5:07 PM ET
NEW YORK, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A U.S. state legislator on Tuesday said he
was optimistic a law he proposed to bar non-U.S. workers from working
on state computer contracts would pass next year.
A committee of the Indiana State Senate reviewed the law on Monday but
decided not to pass it until it was revised, Sen. Jeff Drozda told
Reuters on Tuesday.
The technology industry is closely watching the state legislation as it
evaluates responses to criticisms that U.S. computer services companies
are shipping white-collar jobs overseas while Indian competitors bring
in poorly paid nationals to handle U.S. contracts.
Jeff Drozda, an Indiana state senator, plans to "tweak" the bill to
allow some percentage of non-citizens to work on state business. "I'm
very comfortable it will win approval" next month, he said.
His proposal was a response to the state's award of a $15.2 million
contract to Tata Consultancy Services of India to upgrade computers
that process unemployment claims. Gov. Joe Kernan canceled it after
learning that Tata planned to import 65 Indian workers to work
alongside 18 current state employees.
Drozda, a Republican, charged that because of low wages, Tata was able
to underbid Accenture Ltd. (nyse: ACN - news - people) and Deloitte
Consulting. Kernan, a Democrat, told Reuters the contract was so large
that "no Indiana company had the opportunity to bid on it as a
package."
The Indiana controversy is only the latest involving states and
offshore companies. Earlier this year, New Jersey required eFunds
International Corp. which has most of its staff in India, to hire 12
residents to process state welfare claims.
U.S. computer-service leaders IBM Corp., Electronic Data Systems Corp.,
Computer Sciences Corp. and Accenture have been criticized by
professional groups for taking too much new business offshore.
Next week, the Information Technology Institute, a trade group, will
convene a half-day meeting in Washington to respond. Speakers include
the labor specialist of the National Governors Association; the legal
director of Intel Corp., the world's No. 1 chipmaker; and
representatives of the AFL-CIO. the biggest U.S. labor organization.
Besides "offshoring," participants on Dec. 11 will also discuss special
visas used by companies such as IBM, Intel and Tata to import non-U.S.
citizens to work on technology projects here.
Previously, representatives of the Institute for Electrical and
Electronics Engineers and the National Association of Computer
Consultant Business asked the U.S. Congress to sharply curtail these
visas. The IEEE estimates nearly 7 percent of its 235,000 U.S. members
are unemployed, five times the rate of 2000.
Meanwhile, Indiana's Drozda said he'll revise his proposal to permit as
much as 20 percent of state work to be handled by non-citizens. The
revision reflects legislative sentiment, which seeks to protect Indiana
workers while avoiding retaliation against state exports.
"This whole process doesn't affect companies so much as it affects
individuals," he said.
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=1894_0_4_0
Grudge Match: India vs. Indiana
Matthew Falzone [AlwaysOn] | POSTED: 12.05.03 @00:22
One of the many ways I fight living to a pain-free old age is by
playing ice hockey, one of the most ethnically diverse sports in the
world. So I was not that shocked when my sponsor sent me some new
Canadian sticks that were made in Mexico by an American company.
This partnering is a byproduct of NAFTA, a policy that, when passed in
1993, had many Americans thinking back to steel mill and auto factory
closings in the 80s.
Over the past two years, concern over a new economic paradigm has
become more prevalent: overseas outsourcing. A hot topic of late, you
would be hard pressed to find someone without an opinion on the
subject. Many feel that U.S. citizens are being denied employment in
favor of cheaper labor overseas. Others say these cost reductions
enable companies to increase profit margins and strengthen the economy.
You would think that Silicon Valley would be the locus of all debates
on this subject, but the Hoosiers would beg to differ.
On November 20 Governor Joe Kernan canceled a contract with an overseas
company (Tata America International, a New York-based subsidiary of a
Bombay, India, firm) hired to upgrade state computers and announced
plans to create a new program to steer more contracts to Indiana
businesses.
Governor Kernan stressed that his decision to cancel the contract did
not reflect on Tata's ability to complete the job or any other
shortcomings.
Rather, he explained, the way the contract was designed "effectively
eliminated Indiana companies from being able to participate, and that
is not the way I choose to do business."
More recently, in a setback to the ongoing campaign to keep foreign
workers out of American state contract jobs, an Indiana Senate panel
has refused to support a sweeping bill to limit these jobs to U.S.
citizens.
At a special hearing on Monday, the majority of lawmakers on the
states Senate Committee on Economic Development and Technology
concluded that the bill was excessive and could have unintended
consequences. They felt its passage would send a wrong message at a
time when Indiana seeks to attract investment.
Indiana's governor tries to pull jobs back in-state and the legislature
makes a more subtle push to attract investment (and the jobs that
follow). It seems Indiana is trying to find that elusive happy middle
ground that some see as impossible.
Does it even matter? Is the work destined to go to India anyway? Or
will one of the approaches being tried in Indiana help keep jobs in the
US?
Cast your vote now
There are no comments yet! Be the first to leave one!
Indiana State Employee stats
http://www.in.gov/dwd/inews/docs/oswr_state.htm
Full-time March
Employment
Equivalent Payroll per
10,000
Function Employment ($)
Population
TOTAL 234,916 674,314,751
386.34
FINANCIAL ADMIN 4,420 10,054,382
7.27
CENTRAL ADMIN 5,593 12,481,861
9.20
JUDICIAL-LEGAL 5,043 12,719,076
8.29
POLICE-ARREST 10,315 37,202,664
16.96
POLICE-OTHER 3,578 7,949,868
5.88
FIREFIGHTERS 6,965 24,705,326
11.45
OTHER 314 763,390
0.52
CORRECTION 4,736 10,831,269
7.79
STREETS & HWYS 6,161 15,984,482
10.13
AIRPORTS 222 661,297
0.37
WATER TRANSPORT 0 0
0.00
PUBLIC WELFARE 1,281 2,543,294
2.11
HEALTH 3,168 8,065,613
5.21
HOSPITALS 23,260 70,665,441
38.25
SOC INSUR ADMIN 0 0
0.00
SOLID WASTE MGMT 1,563 3,679,172
2.57
SEWERAGE 2,788 8,125,973
4.59
PARKS & RECREATION 3,446 7,910,007
5.67
HOUSING & COMM DEV 1,709 4,406,352
2.81
NATURAL RESOURCES 538 1,120,652
0.88
WATER SUPPLY 1,987 5,574,035
3.27
ELECTRIC POWER 1,049 3,477,598
1.73
GAS SUPPLY 1,023 3,332,326
1.68
TRANSIT 1,529 4,569,270
2.51
ELEM&SEC INSTRUCT 88,454 304,857,576
145.47
ELEM&SEC OTHER-TOT 47,466 94,320,703
78.06
HIGHER ED INSTRUCT 0 0
0.00
HIGHER ED OTHER 0 0
0.00
OTHER ED - STATE 0 0
0.00
LOCAL LIBRARIES 4,568 9,607,701
7.51
STATE LIQUOR STORES 0 0
0.00
OTHER & UNALLOCABLE 3,740 8,705,423
6.15
Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe or Unsubscribe send an email to
Back to archives