‘Obama call vs outsourcing a reelection ploy’

President Barack Obama. AFP

While Filipino lawmakers are worried about the implications of US President Barack Obama’s call for an end to the outsourcing of American jobs, a local militant labor group on Monday said the call appeared to be a reelection ploy.

In a statement, Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said public pressure had been made to bear on the Obama administration in view of the record unemployment in the United States.

“The American workers and people are clamoring for immediate relief from the suffering caused by the severe economic crisis gripping the world. Obama was forced to call [for an end to outsourcing] to boost his chances of getting reelected this year,” said KMU secretary general Roger Soluta.

This was the reason the KMU “seriously doubted” Obama’s sincerity in calling for an end to the outsourcing of US jobs to countries like the Philippines and India, he said.

Malacañang, meanwhile, was keeping mum for now on the call made by the US President.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said Monday the Palace would leave it to the Department of Foreign Affairs to comment.

“We would not like to comment at this point,’’ she said.

She said Obama’s statement was “internal to them.’’

“Obama has ardently supported outsourcing because it is profitable for big US capitalists who want to boost profits by exploiting cheap and repressed labor in countries like the Philippines,” Soluta said.

The KMU chief, however, said that whether or not the US Congress follows through on Obama’s call with the appropriate legislation, the “nervousness” that greeted his pronouncement in the Philippines should be a “wake-up call” for Filipinos.

“We have to move beyond a crisis-wracked economy dominated by the US. We have to stop relying on the US, or any other country for that matter, to create jobs in the country. We have to stop pressing down workers’ wages and curtailing workers’ rights in order to entice foreign investors to come to the country,” Soluta said.

He said that while the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry provided the government with high tax revenue, it did not address the real needs of the Filipino workers and people.

“While call center employees enjoy higher salaries than other workers in the country, they are extremely exploited and subjected to highly repressive work conditions that damage their health,” he said.

“We have to create decent jobs by implementing a program of genuine land reform and national industrialization. We have to create jobs not by offering cheap and repressed labor to foreign investors but by providing for the basic needs of our people,” Soluta added.

House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzalez and Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone had expressed fears a pending bill in the US Congress which encourages “insourcing” would adversely affect the budding BPO industry in the country.

Evardone said the government should send a lobby group to the US to try and stop the passage of the bill. Officials could also begin to look for other BPO markets, he added.

Outsourcing firms with roughly 800,000 call center agents contribute close to $9 billion a year to the economy. This is close to half of the $19 billion in annual remittances from some 10 million overseas Filipinos workers. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño