Mar 06 2009
IBM moves more jobs overseas!
I understand that making a profit is the bottom line with a company, but when a company moves their plants or offices overseas at the cost of their U.S. employees, I find it offensive.
Over recent years, I’ve noticed that many companies use overseas employees to enter data into their systems and answer customer service questions. The customer service and data entry jobs have been virtually eliminated for U.S. workers. One company that uses overseas employees for customer service is Charter Communications. When I was having issues with the company automatically removing funds my checking account too often, I had to speak with people who were outside of the U.S. To further complicate matters, since they were not in the U.S., they couldn’t process the refund and I’d have to wait 4-8 weeks for the corporate office in Missouri to process it. Yes, folks, I said 4-8 weeks. This happened during Christmas. Can you imagine how angry I was?!
As a side note to that, it does bother me that I spoke with several people outside of the U.S. and gave them all of my demographic information plus the last 4 digits of my social security number. I felt like I gave them all the information they needed to open accounts in my name without the protection that I’d receive from U.S. employees. Think about that the next time you call your cell phone company to get an issue with your bill taken care of and the person on the other end is outside the U.S. Not that I’m saying they’d steal your identity, but what assurance do you have that they won’t? And if they did, would you be able to recover from it?
Yesterday, our local news broadcasted that IBM—which is one of the biggest employers is my town—is moving the local office along with hundreds of jobs to
China. IBMers are extremely upset and feel betrayed. Well, so do I. I understand that IBM stands for International Business Machines, but thanks for abandoning the
U.S. part of your international section of business. They had the audacity to tell their laid-off-high-paid-life-time employees that they could move to China and assume the position there with the Chinese pay scale. Well, we all know that the pay is much lower with longer hours. Which brings me to another point, the reasons they are moving these jobs to China is they can work the Chinese longer hours with less pay and get a tax break from the U.S. for doing it. Way to go U.S. government! In a time when people are being laid off and losing their homes, we reward yet another big business for bad behavior! What a disgrace!
I’m all for free trade, but I am totally against opening our borders to goods that eliminate anything being made or produced in the U.S because it’s cheaper to import it.
Big businesses have lost all credibility with me. I say this as a person who works for a large medical facility. Yes, I’m afraid that I’ll loose my job to a person overseas, but until then, my butt will be here doing my job.
