Posted on 23-10-2003

The Story Of Job
by Alan Marston

Job flew high, had it all, got what he wanted... crashed. Job survived a
bet between God and his #1 angel (Lucifer), however Job was a hero showing
that the persona/ego is not necessarily fatal even if it inflates to
biblical proportions and is burst by no less than God. Unfortunately there
are but a few Jobs who on suffering massive loss attain illuminated
at-onement, while there are millions who crash and don't survive.

The post-modern economy is sending jobs to China, few complain because
they are low paid jobs. Then along comes the huge middle-class of India
and its even greater number of aspirants, speaking english and
computer/electronic based jobs, at much lower wages than in the formerly
priveleged, former colonisers, UK, Europe, USA. The mass loss of jobs to
Indian technical factories and call centres is not something the
middle-class of the West can ignore - or do much about, except raise their
consicousness and act accordingly. Let us pray that happens, but not rely
on it.

The opportunity for enlightenment seems somehow unappealing in the face of
unemployment. The West was won, its now being lost and losing its
material/rational being. Time to move.

................

Losing IT
by George Manbiot

If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of
your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job
in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote
transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour
force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the
distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about
global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should
rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem.
Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing
capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of
woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or
calico) from India. Both products were forbidden because they were
superior
to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles
industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we
had let them in. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, India was
forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden
to produce competing finished products. We are rich because the Indians
are poor.

Now the jobs we stole 200 years ago are returning to India. Last week the
Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to
move to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank
announced that it was cutting 4,000 customer service jobs in Britain and
shifting them to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Prudential,
Standard Chartered, Norwich Union, Bupa, Reuters, Abbey National and
Powergen have already begun to move their call centres to India. The
British workers at the end of the line are approaching the end of the
line.

There is a profound historical irony here. Indian workers can outcompete
British workers today because Britain smashed their ability to compete in
the past. Having destroyed India's own industries, the East India Company
and the colonial authorities obliged its people to speak our language,
adopt our working practices and surrender their labour to multinational
corporations. Workers in call centres in Germany and Holland are less
vulnerable than ours, as Germany and Holland were less successful
colonists, with the result that fewer people in the poor world now speak
their languages.

The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the kind
now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment in
the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and
1990s. The government handed out grants for cybersweatshops in places whose
industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards
and steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have
been testing their systems at government expense before exporting them
somewhere cheaper.

It is not hard to see why most of them have chosen India. The wages of
workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one
tenth of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of
education are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While
British workers will take call-centre jobs only when they have no choice,
Indian workers see them as glamorous. One technical support company in
Bangalore recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications.
British call centres moving to India can choose the most charming,
patient, biddable, intelligent workers the labour market has to offer.

There is nothing new about multinational corporations forcing workers in
distant parts of the world to undercut each other. What is new is the
extent to which the labour forces of the poor nations are also beginning
to
threaten the security of our middle classes. In August, the Evening
Standard came across some leaked consultancy documents suggesting that at
least 30,000 executive positions in Britain's finance and insurance
industries are likely to be transferred to India over the next five years.
In the same month, the American consultants Forrester Research predicted
that the US will lose 3.3 million white-collar jobs between now and 2015.
Most of them will go to India.

Just over half of these are menial "back office" jobs, such as taking calls
and typing up data. The rest belong to managers, accountants, underwriters,
computer programmers, IT consultants, biotechnicians, architects, designers
and corporate lawyers. For the first time in history, the professional
classes of Britain and America find themselves in direct competition with
the professional classes of another nation. Over the next few years, we can
expect to encounter a lot less enthusiasm for free trade and globalisation
in the parties and the newspapers which represent them. Free trade is fine,
as long as it affects someone else's job.

So a historical restitution appears to be taking place, as hundreds of
thousands of jobs, many of them good ones, flee to the economy we ruined.
Low as the wages for these positions are by comparison to our own, they are
generally much higher than those offered by domestic employers. A new
middle class is developing in cities previously dominated by caste. Its
spending will stimulate the economy, which in turn may lead to higher
wages and improved conditions of employment. The corporations, of course,
will then flee to a cheaper country, but not before they have left some of
their money behind. According to the consultants Nasscom and McKinsey,
India - which is always short of foreign exchange - will be earning some
$17bn a year from outsourced jobs by 2008.

On the other hand, the most vulnerable communities in Britain are losing
the jobs which were supposed to have rescued them. Almost two-thirds of
call-centre workers are women, so the disadvantaged sex will slip still
further behind. As jobs become less secure, multinational corporations
will
be able to demand ever harsher conditions of employment in an industry
which is already one of the most exploitative in Britain. At the same
time, extending the practices of their colonial predecessors, they will
oblige their Indian workers to mimic not only our working methods, but
also our accents, our tastes and our enthusiasms, in order to persuade
customers in Britain that they are talking to someone down the road. The
most marketable skill in India today is the ability to abandon your
identity and slip into someone else's.

So is the flight to India a good thing or a bad thing? The only reasonable
answer is both. The benefits do not cancel out the harm. They exist, and
have to exist, side by side. This is the reality of the world order Britain
established, and which is sustained by the heirs to the East India Company,
the multinational corporations. The corporations operate only in their own
interests. Sometimes these interests will coincide with those of a
disadvantaged group, but only by disadvantaging another.

For centuries, we have permitted ourselves to ignore the extent to which
our welfare is dependent on the denial of other people's. We begin to
understand the implications of the system we have created only when it
turns against ourselves.

www.monbiot.com