Notes
on Offshoring
Dave
Hollis, david.hollis@labournet.info
www.labournet.info/offshoring
Introduction
Offshoring
is the relocation by a business of parts of its business functions
and processes to countries with low wage costs [1]. After having
affected production it is now being applied to the IT sector.
As far as production was concerned, the campaigns of the unions
against this phenomena were over rather quickly. This is not surprising.
It is difficult to argue against cost-savings, especially if the
wage costs are vastly different. In the case of software development,
where the wage costs make up most of the costs, it is difficult
to even begin arguing at a cost level.
So what is the answer? Some think that one can expect an answer
from politics. One example is the federation of American trade unions,
the AFL-CIO, and the Communication Workers of America [2]. They
suggest making the H1-B [3] visas more restrictive. It takes little
thought to see that such an approach is divisive, i.e. sets worker
against worker, and is not going to change globalisation at all.
Another suggestion of the AFL-CIO is to call for an investigation
into the effects of offshoring [4].
I also looked on the web to see what I could find in Germany. Perhaps
not surprisingly, there was little to be found. In a union publication
at Hewlett Packard [5], for instance, there was a call for works
agreements, union agreements and help from the European Union. In
general, one gets the impression that the unions see no way out
on their own their only possible saviour is government legislation..
These notes define the environment in which offshoring takes place,
takes a critical look at not what to do and suggests possible approaches
for a campaign.
Finally, my special thanks to Inken Wanzek, Sven Röser, Peter
Waterman and Kim Scipes for many critical remarks and comments on
earlier versions of this paper.
1.
Globalisation is different from international trade of earlier times.
Worldwide networking allows Capital to divide and coordinate its
activities, e.g development, production and logistics, across the
globe.
This is the starting-point and absolutely necessary for everything
that follows in this document. There is often a discussion in left-circles
which begins with the statement that capitalism has been international
for the last 500 years or so. Although this statement is correct,
modern networking has led to capitalism having a completely different
way of working.
On the other hand, today most of the workers, especially white-collar
workers, do not feel threatened by globalisation. They often identify
themselves with the company¹s world-wide presence They often
think more like an employer than an employee. They accept that the
starting point is now the globe and no longer the nation. Between
these two extreme attitudes there is more or less a vacuum.
2.
"Offshoring" of software development and similar activities
is a continuation of the process we have already seen with production.
Not so long ago we saw the outsourcing and/or the transfer of production
to "low-cost" countries. No one, and especially the trade
unions, talks about it anymore because it has become an accepted
fact. Now the more human-intensive (software) development is on
the line as we can already see at best in the USA.
3.
Due to the pressure of competition, Capital is always looking for
ways and means to reduce costs and improve productivity.
One method is offshoring. However, offshoring is a process. It began
with production being moved to Eastern Europe. Then it went to South
East Asia, e.g. to China. Now China is having to compete with countries
like Romania and Russia. In addition, we see a downward spiral for
employee rights, social standards and the environment as each country
tries to compete. It is a global race to the bottom.
4.
A strategy based on the comparison of hidden costs or the particular
advantages of a "highly trained" or "skilled"
Western workforce, forgets that we are dealing with global companies
in a globally networked world. The concepts of "country"
or, even worse, a particular "location" belongs to the
national industrial capitalism of the 19th century.
Usually, and repeating the discussion that took place as the production
was offshored, trade union opponents argue the case for a particular
location or nation. Although some of these arguments may at the
beginning of such a process have a certain validity, they are trying
to defend the indefensible. Without going into the historical details,
the rise of capitalism in Western Europe neither presumes a superiority
of Western culture nor justifies the argument that other countries
outside of Western Europe are unable to do the same work. It should
not be forgotten that countries like China have a far longer cultural
history than their Western counterparts.
5.
Thinking and arguing in terms of locations or countries eventually
degenerates into racism or chauvinism.
If anyone follows the discussions within the unions, it is easy
to see where such a discussion ends. The proposals of the AFL-CIO
and CWA on H1B visas is a case in point. (See http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/h1breforms.cfm)
Much of what one reads on the CWA's ³Techs Unite² mailing
list is another example.
A union only makes sense if solidarity is one of the cornerstones
of its activities. This can neither end at the national border nor,
as has actually happened, outside a particular factory gates. To
think, argue and act in terms of locations or countries is to play
one workforce off against another, one community against another
while Capital continues to think and act globally.
6.
We are going to have to realise that jobs to be offshored were and
never will be "our" jobs. They are jobs provided by the
company in order to make profit out of our labour power.
It is astonishing that so many trade unionists and many white-color
workers fall into this trap. Companies do not provide jobs for social
reasons nor do they belong to the employee. Companies expect surplus
value from them. If more money can be made somewhere else, the jobs
will be transferred there.
7.
Globalisation from above has to be countered with a globalisation
from below. [6]
This sounds horribly banal. Any campaign on offshoring is going
to have to be a campaign on globalisation. You can't deal with the
one without the other. Offshoring is an example where globalisation
leads to. It is precisely the capabilities brought about by global
networking that makes offshoring possible. Yet it is the most difficult
point to put and get across. Mostly you get the answer that this
may be very well but what are you going to do in this particular
case ...
8.
Any trade union campaign against offshoring may not refer to or
view the receiving countries in the "third-person".
One of the first things that one notices when following a discussion
on offshoring is the use of ³us² and ³them².
There is no attempt to view those who are going to benefit from
the offshoring as colleagues who also have interests. The use of
such language betrays the person using it.
9.
In its present form the trade union movement is incapable of running
the necessary campaign on off-shoring and against globalisation
from above.
Trade unions were built to fight and mirror the industrial capitalism
of the 19th century. Their present demise, caused by their rigid
structure reflects this.
10.
Global capitalism has provided us with the means to fight for and
put a globalisation from below into practice the internet.
"... Consider that we currently live in a world where almost
anyone located in an urban centre can share their message globally
with a free blog and a few dollars spent in an Internet café.
Access is not or will not for much longer be a major
communications stumbling block for civil society organisations.
The much more pressing need is for civil society to learn how to
appropriate the network technologies that we now have access to,
bending and molding them so that they can be used more strategically
and politically ..." [7]
11.
A campaign for globalisation from below will have to be run by the
colleagues themselves. This will entail building up our own global
structures, parallel structures to supplement those within the unions
and using their structures where it is appropriate and possible.
This means global networking. Such a campaign may well not be looked
at too kindly by some officials within the official trade unions.
[8]
Having seen and experienced the inability of the official trade
unions to run the necessary campaigns and create the appropriate
structures, the members and non-members will have to do this work
instead. We are not talking about taking over the union ourselves.
The fight for the leadership of the unions is not our fight. Whoever
makes it there are likely to be corrupted anyway. The most important
point is access to the resources and structures. Membership in various
committees will undoubtedly be necessary. We have no illusions,
however, that we can make any fundamental and lasting change to
the existing trade union structures.
12.
Those workforces in companies with global structures in place will
most probably take the leading role in building up a rank-and-file
global network.
Those who work for a "global player" are likely to be
those who are first going to develop such a network. Whether those
who will do this will have a union background, already be involved
in a social movement or just be normal employees, will have to be
seen. It could just as easily be the case, for instance, that such
a network begins at a sectoral level.
13.
A campaign on off-shoring also raises the need for the unions to
become part of the social movements.
"Social movements can be understood as the collective withdrawal
of consent to established institutions. ..."[9]
"One common model for social change is the formation of a political
party that aims to take over the state, whether by reform or by
revolution. This model has always been problematic, since it implied
the perpetuation of centralized social control, albeit control exercised
in the interest of a different group. However, it faces further
difficulties in the era of globalization.
"Reform and revolution depend on solving problems by means
of state power, however acquired. But globalization has outflanked
governments at local and national levels, leaving them largely at
the mercy of global markets, corporations and institutions. Dozens
of parties in every part of the world have come to power with pledges
to overcome the negative effects of globalization, only to submit
in a matter of months to the doctrines of neoliberalism and the
³discipline of the market.² Nor is there a global state
to be taken over.
"Fortunately, taking state power is far from the only or even
the most important means of large-scale social change. An alternative
pathway is examined by historical sociologist Michael Mann in The
Sources of Social Power. The characteristic way that new solutions
to social problems emerge, Mann maintains, is never through revolution
or reform. Rather, new solutions develop in what he calls interstitial
locations nooks and crannies in and around the dominant institutions.
Those who were initially marginal then link together in ways that
allow them to outflank those institutions and force a reorganization
of the status quo." [10]
14.
A campaign on off-shoring will need to focus on the issues of human
rights, decent pay and conditions, winning both women and those
who work in the informal economy. [11]
The issue of human rights for countries like China involves a campaign
for independent and free trade unions and direct support for those
workers who risk long prison sentences for daring to challenge the
Chinese state. The right to free speech, to hold meetings, to organise
and to strike are necessary for free trade unions. Such rights are
not to be taken for granted even in Western Europe.
To organise in the informal sector, to make unions attractive for
women, to encourage rank-and-file activity, to bring together workforces
from different locations and countries and to combat globalisation
from above with a globalisation from below, raises the question
of what type of unions are necessary for the 21st century. Looking
at recent history, the union of the future is going to have to be
networked, have flexible structures and a flat hierarchy.[12]
[1] Slightly adapted from the definition used by the British Trade
Union amicus
[2] See http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/h1breforms.cfm for
details.
[3] An H1B visa is a temporary visa issued for special occupations,
e.g. accountants, computer analysts, engineers, financial analysts,
scientists, architects and lawyers
[4] Wolfgang Müller: Ihr seid einfach zu teuer (You are quite
simply too expensive), Freitag, 16.01.04. http://www.freitag.de/2004/04/04042201.php
Interestingly, the author, himself a German trade unionist, refers
uncritically to an American draft act that would require of foreign
call centres that they identify themselves on each call.
[5] http://www.hpneu-igm.de/aktuelles/i_news/Standpunkt_Dez03.pdf
[6] For a detailed exposition on this subject: Globalization from
below: the power of solidarity, Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, Brendan
Smith, South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
[7] Appropriating the Internet for Social Change, Towards the Strategic
Use of Networked Technologies by Transnational Civil Society Organizations,
Version 1.0, Social Science Research Council, Prepared by Mark Surman
& Kathrine Reilly, November 2003, Page 1. http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/civ_soc_report/index.page
[8] One of my reviewers, Kim Scipes, USA thinks that I am wrong
on this point. In a yet unpublished paper, to be published by Working
USA in the first half of 2004, he argues the case for ³Social
Justice Unionism² instead of the current ³business unionism²
that is prevelant in the USA. Although there have been many examples
of successful transformations of union structures, at least partially,
we still see things still going wrong again. Why? For me this raises
not just the question of the ³iron law of oligarchy² but
also what sort of union structures are appropriate for the 21st
century in a globally networked capitalistic world and whether the
unions will ever be prepared or able to transform themselves.
[9] Globalization from below: the power of solidarity, p. 21
[10] Ibid, p.23-24
[11] These ideas originate from Strategies for the Labour Movement,
Dan Gallin, Global Labour Institute http://www.global-labour.org/strategies.htm
. I doubt whether this list is complete!
[12] Recent history has shown that network structures with a flat
hierarchy and certain other features are very effective, seemingly
universally applicable and, in the words of the RAND Corporation,
³very difficult to beat². I am basically arguing for their
application to the field of trade unions. See Networks and Netwars,
The Fight For the Future, David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla, www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/ronfeldt/index.html
|
