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Bay Area Tech Workers Rally Against 'Offshoring'
About 50 CWA members, unemployed tech workers and other protesters rallied Tuesday morning in front of San Francisco's Hyatt Regency hotel, site of a two-day conference dubbed "Nearshore and Offshore Outsourcing."
"We are protesting the offshoring of tech jobs because it is destroying the fabric of our community in Silicon Valley," said Joshua Sperry, an organizer with CWA Local 9423, whose members were joined by others from Locals 9410 and 9415.
An estimated 400,000 high-tech American jobs have already been sent overseas and by 2015, experts believe the job losses could number 3.5 million. In 2000, according to one research group, more than $4 billion in wages was lost to offshore jobs, and the figure is rising rapidly.
"Workers, from software developers to system administrators to engineers, are very frightened about what this trend means about the future of the industry and the future of their jobs," Sperry said.
To address the problem and reach out to unemployed and concerned tech workers, CWA set up a website earlier this year, www.techsunite.org. Nationally, CWA has persuaded congressional leaders to order a Government Accounting Office study of the extent and consequences of the problem, and is pursuing legislation to close loopholes that hurt American workers.
Kathy Forte, who works at IBM's Silicon Valley laboratory and is a member of the Alliance@IBM/CWA, said she worries about supporting her son if her job moves overseas. "There are no jobs to replace those white-collar jobs that are moving," she said.
Sperry said the list of corporations that have moved high-tech jobs offshore is a who's who of Silicon Valley employers: Sun, Oracle, IBM, HP, Intel and SBC, among others.
"These are good jobs with good pay, the core of our local economy," said Shelley Kessler of the Central Labor Council of San Mateo County, another participant in the rally. "Offshoring is undermining our tax base, which affects our schools and infrastructure. You can't sustain our economy with low-wage jobs."
The conference drew about 250 senior executives from Bay Area high-tech firms, who came to learn how they could cut costs by moving jobs offshore. The event was put on by a company called the Brainstorm Group, which held a similar conference in Chicago in April and has another scheduled for November in New York.
Brainstorm President Gregg Rock, quoted by Silicom.com, said Tuesday was the first time protesters had targeted one of his events. He told the reporter he empathizes with workers who have lost jobs but said there's no turning back. "The genie's out of the bottle on offshore outsourcing," he said, adding that 3 to 4 percent of tech company budgets nationally are already earmarked for foreign labor.
"We are protesting the offshoring of tech jobs because it is destroying the fabric of our community in Silicon Valley," said Joshua Sperry, an organizer with CWA Local 9423, whose members were joined by others from Locals 9410 and 9415.
An estimated 400,000 high-tech American jobs have already been sent overseas and by 2015, experts believe the job losses could number 3.5 million. In 2000, according to one research group, more than $4 billion in wages was lost to offshore jobs, and the figure is rising rapidly.
"Workers, from software developers to system administrators to engineers, are very frightened about what this trend means about the future of the industry and the future of their jobs," Sperry said.
To address the problem and reach out to unemployed and concerned tech workers, CWA set up a website earlier this year, www.techsunite.org. Nationally, CWA has persuaded congressional leaders to order a Government Accounting Office study of the extent and consequences of the problem, and is pursuing legislation to close loopholes that hurt American workers.
Kathy Forte, who works at IBM's Silicon Valley laboratory and is a member of the Alliance@IBM/CWA, said she worries about supporting her son if her job moves overseas. "There are no jobs to replace those white-collar jobs that are moving," she said.
Sperry said the list of corporations that have moved high-tech jobs offshore is a who's who of Silicon Valley employers: Sun, Oracle, IBM, HP, Intel and SBC, among others.
"These are good jobs with good pay, the core of our local economy," said Shelley Kessler of the Central Labor Council of San Mateo County, another participant in the rally. "Offshoring is undermining our tax base, which affects our schools and infrastructure. You can't sustain our economy with low-wage jobs."
The conference drew about 250 senior executives from Bay Area high-tech firms, who came to learn how they could cut costs by moving jobs offshore. The event was put on by a company called the Brainstorm Group, which held a similar conference in Chicago in April and has another scheduled for November in New York.
Brainstorm President Gregg Rock, quoted by Silicom.com, said Tuesday was the first time protesters had targeted one of his events. He told the reporter he empathizes with workers who have lost jobs but said there's no turning back. "The genie's out of the bottle on offshore outsourcing," he said, adding that 3 to 4 percent of tech company budgets nationally are already earmarked for foreign labor.