Nobody has to explain the meaning of global outsourcing to Ron Martin or Don Greene. They were among 115 employees of Dixon Ticonderoga Co. who lost their jobs when the firm closed its sprawling 167-year-old crayon and chalk factory in Sandusky early last year and moved production to Mexico City.þþAnd it hasn't been easy on them.þþMr. Martin, 42, a former machine operator, recently got his GED certificate and hopes to take classes to become a skilled tradesman. ÿRight now, I'm looking for a job,ÿ he said.þþBut with some northwest Ohio counties reporting double-digit unemployment, ÿit's pretty rough; jobs are scarce, and good ones are hard to find.ÿþþMr. Greene, 47, found a job in another Sandusky-area factory, but got laid off. He then took another job as a maintenance technician, making $10.25 an hour instead of the $14 he got at the crayon plant. He said he was happy to get the job. ÿI see people losing their homes,ÿ he said.þþBut that plant was on strike for the last three weeks, and he crossed a picket line to keep the job. ÿI'm caught between a rock and a hard place,ÿ he said. ÿI've always been a union worker, and [now] I'm working day to day.ÿþþDuring this presidential election year, every American voter will know something about outsourcing. The practice of sending jobs overseas has become a campaign issue, and legislation to restrict exporting jobs has been proposed in Congress and a dozen states.þþWhile thousands of manufacturing jobs in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan moved to Mexico, China, and the Far East, the movement has spread. Hundreds of thousands of American white-collar jobs nationwide are going overseas too. Many of those have moved to India.þþÿWe kind of thought it was OK to outsource blue-collar jobs, but now that white-collar jobs are being outsourced, we're waking up to what that means,ÿ said Bruce Rumpf, president of Job1USA, an executive-search and temporary staffing firm in Toledo.þþÿIf people who are used to making $70,000 can't find work, what are we going to retrain them to do? Our economy will ultimately suffer: They're the ones who buy houses, cars, and clothes.ÿþþMany corporations have turned to offshore outsourcing in recent years to save money and boost profits. Among them are information-technology firms that already have foreign payrolls of $7 billion to $15 billion annually, according to recent studies.þþMore than 200 of the nation's 1,000 largest companies have information-technology outsourcing operations in India, another study noted. Toledo-based Owens Corning last year moved some accounting jobs to India.þþEven some smaller manufacturers are outsourcing. Ohio Art Co. in Bryan started making its famed Etch A Sketch drawing toy in China three years ago, cutting 100 jobs from its area payroll.þþÿThe younger ones lost out more than I did,ÿ said Mary Fry, who retired after more than 43 years with Ohio Art when the line closed down. ÿI probably would have worked at least another year and a half. ... I didn't like it but nothing could be done about it. I wasn't bitter over it.ÿþþOther types of companies are outsourcing too, sending a variety of service jobs to places like India, China, the Philippines, Ireland, Russia, Israel, and South Africa.þþThe firms include software developers that hire lower-paid programmers in foreign countries, big banks and insurance companies that process applications and loan documents abroad, and computer and cellular-telephone companies that have customer-service call centers in foreign countries. Others are payroll, medical transcription, accounting, and financial analysis jobs.þþForrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass., predicted about a year ago that about 3.3 million U.S. service jobs will be exported to foreign countries by 2015, taking $136 billion a year out of American workers' pockets.þþA recent study by professors at the University of California at Berkeley calls the early Forrester study conservative. The California researchers say as many as 14 million U.S. jobs could get shipped overseas.þþMost unions have fought outsourcing. ÿPeople don't realize the damage around the United States,ÿ said Rick Vermillion, an international representative with the Paper, Allied Chemical & Energy Workers union that has a dozen locals in northwest Ohio. Some locals, including one at Ohio Art in Bryan, have lost jobs to overseas plants.þþStill, outsourcing has some vocal defenders. Economists usually argue that outsourcing -- and free trade in general -- is good for the economy.þþThey also point out that outsourcing helps lower the cost of living and helps keep America consumers' standard of living high.þþEven Robert Reich, secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, contends that outsourcing doesn't reduce jobs in America. Mr. Reich's widely disseminated prescription is that ÿif other countries can do something cheaper, we ought to let them do it, and concentrate on what we can do best.ÿþþA business trade association, the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs, has been busy lobbying against legislation to put a crimp in outsourcing.þþThe U.S. Senate this month approved a measure to stop federal contractors from exporting jobs that had been done by federal workers and to restrict procurement of some foreign-produced goods and services.þþOutsourcing has become a familiar refrain in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.þþLG Philips Displays closed its TV picture-tube plant in Ottawa, which once employed 1,200, to make the tubes at a lower-cost factory in Mexico. About 120 Dana Corp. jobs in Lima went to India, to an affiliate there.þþEagle Picher Automotive's Hillsdale Tool and Manufacturing Division said it was laying off 54 because of shifting a production line to China, but then it decided to shut down its entire plant, idling 150.þþMr. Vermillion, the union representative, said PACE still has a good relationship with Ohio Art, even though the company has only 85 union jobs now, compared with about 400 at the peak.þþÿThis company did what it thought it had to do,ÿ said Eric Tressler, president of the PACE local 5-0701 in Bryan.þþÿI'm more upset with the government than Ohio Art. We're losing too many jobs. Those people [making $1 an hour] aren't going to be consumers.ÿþþCharles Gray, vice president of the local, blames large retailers like Wal-Mart for ÿforcing price lines so low American manufacturers can't compete.ÿ He worries that ÿthe middle class is being destroyed. Pretty soon people aren't going to have enough money to live.ÿþþEven some displaced-but-re-employed workers have worries. Leo Raab, 64, who worked 25 years for Dixon Ticonderoga in Sandusky, got a job in a Wal-Mart grocery.þþÿWhere are kids going to work?ÿ he asked. ÿI'm just glad I'm the age I am.ÿþþþ
Source: The Toledo Blade
