Bill to Prevent Offshoring of University of California Jobs Signed into Law

A California state bill to save thousands of information technology jobs at the University of California (UC) from being sent overseas was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown this week.

California Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D) introduced the legislation (AB 848), which requires the state's public universities to certify that any contracted work will be performed solely by workers within the United States. It’s squarely aimed at UC system, which has contracted Indian outsourcer HCL to manage IT infrastructure and networking-related services.

In February, nearly 100 IT workers at UC’s San Francisco campus lost their jobs to lower-paid workers from India. As a condition of their severance, they were required to train HCL staffers in India over videoconference and to train workers brought to campus on H-1B visas how to do their jobs. These replacements have since returned to India working for HCL, a multi-billion dollar company.

The bill, supported by UPTE-CWA, will stop the loss of thousands more UC jobs. San Francisco was only the first phase of this HCL contract, which applies to all 10 UC campuses across California.

"This bill is a big victory for UC workers, and a big step in our fight to stop the devastating trend of offshoring U.S. IT jobs," said Jelger Kalmijn, president of UPTE-CWA 9119. "It is heartening to see our legislators standing up against this dangerous race-to-the-bottom that harms workers everywhere. Employers like UC should be put on notice that they can no longer exploit loopholes to displace U.S. workers. We will continue to fight back against attempts to undermine good, family-supporting jobs."