Bishop Forces Halt to U.S.-Funded Outsourcing Plan

Press Release

Today, Congressman Tim Bishop hailed the suspension of a plan to use taxpayer dollars to train workers in Sri Lanka for jobs in the outsourcing industry. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had proposed a $10 million program to train Sri Lankans for outsourcing jobs and may have expanded this program to other nations.

Congressman Bishop sent a letter to USAID on August 9 raising his objections to the plan and the agency responded last night, saying "USAID has suspended a job skills development project in Sri Lanka while we conduct a review to ensure the project will not take any jobs away from Americans."

"Everybody knows that outsourcing takes jobs away from American workers," Congressman Bishop said. "I am glad that USAID has finally seen the light. We need to be looking out for American jobs and American taxpayers and that means not one nickel of taxpayer money should support job-killing outsourcing."

On August 10, Bishop joined laid off communications workers in a press conference at the New York State One-Stop Career center in Patchogue to demand that (USAID) scrap the $10 million program, which Bishop condemned in his letter as "teaching foreign workers how to better take jobs from American workers."

USAID's proposed pilot program would have helped train 3,000 Sri Lankans in information technology, business process outsourcing, and call center support. Following their training, the tech workers would be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of low labor costs.

"Any investment in outsourcing is a bet against American workers, so once again I thank Congressman Bishop for fighting for the jobs we need here," said Michael Gendron of Communications Workers of America Local 1108 in Patchogue, which has hundreds of members out of work due to outsourcing and the economic downturn. "This case illustrates that it's time for corporate America to stop the irresponsible practice of outsourcing jobs, especially in these difficult economic times."

USAID has announced that at Bishop's urging, they will both review this specific program as well as update policy guidelines which were establish under President Bush in 2003 with the purpose of "ensuring that USAID's projects do not adversely affect US jobs."

"If guidelines that are supposed to protect American jobs allow for outsourcing, then I think it's safe to say those guidelines need major revision," Congressman Bishop said.

If necessary, Bishop is preparing to introduce bipartisan legislation with Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) that would amend the Fiscal Year 2011 State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill to prohibit USAID from funding outsourcing training programs.

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