[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 11, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S958-S959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          EXPORTING U.S. JOBS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, 2 days ago President Bush sent to 
Congress his annual report on the State of America's economy. Contained 
in that report is a statement that was quite remarkable. After 
presiding over the loss of 2.6 million jobs, after claiming for 3 years 
that stopping the job hemorrhage was one of their top priorities, the 
Bush administration now says that exporting American jobs to China and 
India and other low-wage nations is good for the American economy.
  I read that, and I must have read it two or three times thinking 
there had to be a catch, thinking there had to be some caveat, there 
had to be some condition. But there is no condition. The statement from 
the report could not be more clear. This administration believes that 
exporting jobs to China and India and other low-wage nations is good 
for America's economy. They seem to want to turn a jobless recovery 
into a hopeless recovery.
  The President's report is proof that there are those in this 
administration who simply do not understand what is happening to this 
economy and how deeply concerned people are about their economic 
future.
  People who think shipping American jobs overseas is good for the 
economy need to talk to people such as Myra Bronstein. She is not a 
statistic. She is not an abstract concept on computer models.
  Sometimes we focus so much on corporate stock earnings or the Dow 
Jones Industrial Average, we lose sight of the challenges that real 
Americans are actually facing. Myra Bronstein knows all about 
outsourcing. She has a degree in electronic engineering and 15 years of 
experience in the information technology industry.

  Four years ago, she left a good job with AT&T in New Jersey to take a 
new job with a software development company called Watchmark 
Corporation in Bellevue, WA. She was one of about 20 software testers 
at Watchmark.
  One Friday last April, Myra came to work. She and other software 
testers were called into a meeting. They were told that they were being 
replaced by workers in India, that their jobs would be gone as they 
finished training their replacements, and that if they refused to train 
the new workers they would be ineligible for severance pay, 
unemployment insurance, or health insurance through COBRA.
  Then they were told that the new workers were flying in over the 
weekend and would be there on Monday. Most of her coworkers just had to 
train one new person. Because Myra Bronstein was working on the highest 
priority projects, she actually had to train two replacements. The 
whole while she was trying frantically to figure out where she was 
going to find a new job in the midst of the ``dot-com'' bust and a 
jobless recovery.
  Myra Bronstein is not alone. According to a new national survey that 
is just being released today, nearly one in four information technology 
workers said his or her company has offshored jobs. Incredibly, almost 
one in five reported they themselves had lost a job after training a 
foreign worker. Ninety-three percent--nearly all--expressed concerns 
about the impact of offshoring jobs on the IT industry and how it would 
impact their communities, the economy, and this country. One-third of 
the workers surveyed said the trend toward outsourcing and offshoring 
jobs is contributing to layoffs. And more than half said it was pushing 
down wages and benefits.
  When textile manufacturing jobs started to move offshore in the 
1980s, workers in those industries were told that the change was good 
for America's economy. They were told that all they had to do was to 
learn some new skills, train for some ``new economy,'' and they could 
get better paying jobs in the technology and service industries.
  Workers held up their end of the deal. They got the training. Many 
did get jobs in the computer and IT industries, in health care and 
financial services, and other so-called new industries. Now these new 
jobs are being shipped overseas.
  We are offshoring America's future. We are exporting some of our 
Nation's most promising research and development jobs. These are the 
jobs that support middle-class families. They are the jobs that enable 
people to own their own homes and put their kids through college.
  Sixty-eight percent of IT workers have a college degree or higher. 
Half have annual salaries between $75,000 and $125,000. Their jobs are 
being offshored to people who will earn less than $10,000.
  This is not just happening in Seattle or Silicon Valley. It is 
happening in Sioux Falls and St. Louis and cities and towns all across 
America. Now the Bush administration tells us that exporting American 
jobs is actually good for the economy.
  Shipping good jobs overseas may boost the quarterly earnings of some 
companies. It may make some CEOs look smart and make some quick profit 
for some investors. But how can it be good for the economy to export 
America's best jobs? How can it be good for the economy to offshore the 
jobs that support middle-class families and sustain strong communities? 
How can exporting jobs create opportunities for Americans?

  It is not just the jobs that get outsourced. When American companies 
ship jobs offshore, they also send tax returns, medical records, credit 
card numbers, financial statements, and all kinds of other sensitive 
and confidential consumer information.
  America has lost 2.6 million jobs on this administration's watch. 
That is more jobs than the last 11 administrations put together. Nine 
million Americans are now out of work. Long-term unemployment is at a 
20-year high.
  Eighty-thousand workers are exhausting their unemployment benefits 
every week because Republican leaders refuse to support extending the 
Federal emergency unemployment benefits.
  The Economic Policy Institute recently found that in 48 States jobs 
are shifting from higher paying to lower paying industries.
  In his State of the Union Message, President Bush said he understood, 
finally, that we have a jobs problem in America. He promised his 
administration would do more to help people find and train for jobs of 
the future.
  A few days later, a professor from the University of Texas wrote an 
op-ed in the Washington Post about what she said was a model job 
training program in Austin. Many of the students at the center do not 
have the advantages that Myra Bronstein and many other IT workers have. 
They do not have graduate degrees. What they do have is a fierce desire 
to make a better life for themselves and their children. Many of them 
have two jobs. They catch a bus to their classes, where they learn 
about computer programming and spreadsheets and other supposedly 
marketable skills.
  The professor wrote that one woman who showed her proudly how she 
``uses MapQuest.com to get directions to the houses that she cleans on 
her hands and knees, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, for a pittance,'' 
was just lucky to have a job at all.
  She wrote:

       Before they learned these skills, the trainees thought that 
     it was their lack of computer skills that prevented them from 
     getting good information-age jobs. They thought something was 
     wrong with them. Now they know something is wrong with our 
     job market.

  There is something wrong with the job market, and the Bush 
administration's cavalier endorsement of shipping American jobs 
overseas can only make

[[Page S959]]

matters worse. The administration owes the American people an 
explanation and an apology. More than that, they owe this Nation a plan 
that will actually create jobs, not export them to China, to India, or 
other low-wage countries but to create jobs here.
  I ask the President to renounce this report from his economic 
advisers and assure all Americans that the Federal Government will not 
be taking steps to export these jobs overseas.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my leader time not be 
taken from the morning business allocated to the Democratic side.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________