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HILLARY AND OUTSOURCING. The Obama campaign fumbled badly in June when it attempted to make an issue of Hillary Clinton's ties to Indian businesses implicated in the outsourcing of American jobs, releasing a press release that identified her as (D-Punjab). Today the Los Angeles Times offers up a more analytical take on the Senator's ties to India's Tata Consultancy Services, a company with 10,000 employees in the United States, 90 percent of whom are foreign-born. Clinton lured Tata to open an office in Buffalo, New York, the Western New York city that's only now beginning to revitalize after a decades-long economic slump. She heralded Tata's arrival as an opportunity for research collaboration between Buffalo's state university and the corporation.
What were the results? Tata created only 10 jobs in Buffalo (the company won't say how many of those employees are American citizens) and has so far not worked at all with the university. In 2004 Clinton defended herself to Lou Dobbs, saying, "Outsourcing does work both ways." But at least in the Tata deal -- and my hunch is that this is the case for many supposed partnerships between huge multinational corporations and public universities in economically beleaguered regions -- local benefits were minute.
The Times reports that earlier this month, Clinton assured an Indian-American audience in Silicon Valley that she'd fight for more visas for skilled workers like themselves, recognizing that there are benefits to both the United States and their home country. So while Clinton is talking frequently now about economic inequality -- I've heard her rail against astronomical CEO salaries, for example -- she isn't really backpedaling away from her long-time view of economic globalization, which is essentially a positive one.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (8)
Buffalo has been starting to revitalize for the past 25 years. (Damn you Rigas) There are also 900 members in the UB Graduate Indian Student Association. I would bet those ten employees were recent grads who needed an HB-1.
Posted by: upstate | July 30, 2007 5:36 PM
Speaking of out sourcing...The NYT has recently sent all it's customer service business to India....so, if your paper isn't on your doorstep in the morning and you call for a replacement....Hello, Delhi.......
Posted by: ff | July 30, 2007 6:32 PM
Exhibit No. 461 showing why Hillary Clinton is bad for America. As Lewis Lapham used to say, "Why do the Republicans hate [Bill] Clinton so much? He is a Republican."
And so is his wife.
Posted by: brewmn | July 30, 2007 8:18 PM
After 6 years of Bush, anyone who can't tell the difference between the Clintons and a Republican has to be considered irredeemable.
Posted by: Steve | July 30, 2007 11:46 PM
"she isn't really backpedaling away from her long-time view of economic globalization, which is essentially a positive one."
Do you disagree with this? Is your view really that in the long term a global economy is negative? I simply can not agree with that. While NAFTA may have failed what it was supposed to achieve (a healthy Mexican economy), and while Bush's trade policies have been poor in design and implementation, lacking protection for labor and the environment, I simply can not agree that the global economy is bad in the long-term. A progressive emphasis should not be on pitting workers against workers. We should be arguing for trade deals with environmental and labor protections, and for policies that buffer displaced workers from global or even regional outsourcing and industry relocation. We should be advocating for policies that support union organizing at home and abroad. As for Visa's, you mention the employees are foreign born, but they are clearly living in the US. I went to graduate school with a class that was 30% foriegn nationals, most of whom were desperate to get sponsorship to stay in the US. I'm not saying that Clinton should have helped this company but it is possible she thought they would bring jobs to the area and would work with the university.
Posted by: Melanie | July 31, 2007 12:05 AM
"After 6 years of Bush, anyone who can't tell the difference between the Clintons and a Republican has to be considered irredeemable."
I'm just old enough to remember when Republicans were the semi-respectable party of Wall Street, with the John Brichers on the fringe (now, they've pretty much inverted). The Clintons are the former type of Republican.
How do you make the claim that the Clintons' are true FDR progressives? Their most significant accomplishments legislatively were almost uniformly Republican (e.g., welfare reform, stiffer criminal penalties for nonviolent drug users).
Posted by: brewmn | July 31, 2007 10:55 AM
"We should be arguing for trade deals with environmental and labor protections, and for policies that buffer displaced workers from global or even regional outsourcing and industry relocation. We should be advocating for policies that support union organizing at home and abroad."
Agreed. But we should also be supporting fast-tracking globalization only when those conditions have been guaranteed. Because right now, all globalization is doing IS pitting labor against itself in a race to the economic bottom.
Posted by: brewmn | July 31, 2007 10:59 AM
shocking! Hillary Clinton, an enemy of the working american?
Just one more reason not to vote for her. This party should pick a better candidate because it won't win with this one.
Posted by: soullite | July 31, 2007 11:38 AM