From: john <john-AT-svejk.org>
Subject: Outsourcing (was: Re: AUT: Caffentzis article)
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 16:47:11 +0100



On 30 Mar 2004, at 19:18, Nate Holdren wrote:


> Do white workers in the US really see flags waving and listen to  
> diatribes against the browner skin toned and think "hmm, this could  
> mean a decent job for me...". Fear is definitely ever-present in this  
> country, but I'm with Chris that in my experience it's less an  
> externally directed fear and more a fear of loss of wages and ensuing  
> financial ruin.

I'm not in the US, but my impression, from reading a lot of I.T.  
websites and forums, is that there is a lot of fear, in the IT sector,  
of outsourcing. It's pretty much the number one topic at the moment.  
This fear is expressed as a fear of other countries (India especially)  
and that's the link between the external threat and redundancy at home.  
See, for example, this discussion from Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/04/02/1331200.shtml? 
tid=103&tid=187&tid=99

Here in the UK, there's also a lot of talk about outsourcing, but it's  
playing out differently. For one thing, there's a certain amount of  
outsourcing from London to the rest of the country. For another, it's  
very much about unskilled, rote labour (call centres) - whereas the  
fears expressed in the US seem to be more from skilled computer  
professionals.

Anyone got any good reccemendations for reading on outsourcing?

John




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