By Arunava Talukdar, Research Analyst
Source: BPO Watch India
New York, Thursday, May 15, 2008 : **Obama considered anti-outsourcing as one of the key issues for his campaign**
When Barack Obama decided to run for the presidential election after his short tenure as the Democratic Senator from Illinois, his candidature was welcomed across the country. He featured in the national limelight after his outstanding speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 to become the conspicuous leader for a new politics. He was however, entangled with two potential problems. First, that he is African-American and secondly, Democrats will not support him because they do not think an American of African descent can win a general election.
Issues of globalization and outsourcing have never been chosen by American politicians to show leadership. Doing so would mean challenging global financial firms, who apparently are the biggest campaign financiers. On the contrary, Obama considered anti-outsourcing as one of the key issues for his campaign.
Playing the anti-outsourcing card Obama believes that, while the United States cannot retreat from globalization, it would have to take measures to ensure that jobs are not shipped out of the country.
“We have to stop providing tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States of America,” – Barack Obama
Reacting to the displacement of workers in manufacturing jobs as a result of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and generally to the anti-outsourcing crowd, Obama said that he would ensure environmental, safety and labor standards in every pact that the US signs.
In one of the papers circulated by Obama campaign had claimed that Clinton is in support of outsourcing as she is gets dollars for her campaign from Indian-Americans and that she does not care about lost American jobs. The ‘Off-the-record’ memo by Obama quoted that in 2005, while on a trip to India, Hillary Clinton told a meeting of industrialists that there is no way to legislate against reality and that outsourcing will continue.
An internal memo by Obama campaign in June, 2007 revealed that Clinton’s ties to wealthy Indian businesspeople had made her favor outsourcing. The memo mentioned the tie between Clinton and Vinod Gupta, an Indian entrepreneur who founded InfoUSA, one of the largest brokers of information on consumers in the US. Gupta, a major fund-raiser and supporter for the Clintons, was detailed in the Obama memo because his company outsources to India and he has vociferously supported the practice.
Obama believes that the global integration of the US economy is there to stay. But he would fight for American workers who lost their jobs. Obama refutes tax relief to companies that ship job overseas but said that education system must improve to check the outsourcing trend.
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