More on Murphy and Outsourcing

from the inbox:

Today, Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8th District) announced that he successfully fought to end a program that was using millions of taxpayer dollars to outsource American jobs to South Asia. Last month, Murphy had called for the U.S. Agency on International Development (USAID) to abandon the new outsourcing program and announced he would draft legislation to defund it, should they continue moving forward.

USAID contacted Murphy on Wednesday to let him know that because of his intervention, the program would end. They had originally planned to spend $10 million to provide 3,000 Sri Lankan workers with English language proficiency classes as well as training in IT skills, call center support, and business process outsourcing. Upon completion of the program, the newly-trained South Asian workers would have been placed with American companies looking to outsource American jobs and take advantage of the region’s cheap labor.

To make matters worse, these individuals would have been brought to the United States so that soon-to-be-outsourced American employees could train the foreign workers in how to take over their job.

In a call earlier today, Murphy reiterated his commitment to fight against outsourcing and protect American jobs for American workers. “There are unemployed Americans out there today who would be happy to get that IT training and learn those computer programming skills so they could open new career paths and support their families,” he said.

When he called for the program to be stopped last month, Murphy was joined by communication workers who were unemployed because of the recession. Jim Gardler, President of the Communications Workers of America Local 13000 said, “Murphy took the lead on this issue and fought to put American workers at the head of the line. We know Murphy is fighting for the middle-class, working families back home.”