{news} Keeping jobs local: Burlington city law bans use of outsourcing

[David Bedell]

This and a living wage ordinance would go far.

http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/122005/BanOutsourcing.shtml
   Keeping jobs local: Burlington city law bans use of outsourcing
By Shay Totten | Vermont Guardian
posted December 2, 2005

Officials in Burlington have a message for companies that outsource jobs to 
faraway countries: Don’t come looking for business at City Hall.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the city council on Nov. 21 sets a 
policy that the city will not give service contracts to contractors, 
subcontractors, and vendors who are not performing that work in the United 
States or Canada. An amendment to strike Canada from the ordinance failed on 
an 8-3 vote.

The new city law was spurred by Progressive Phil Fiermonte, who represents 
the city’s working class Old North End and is a longtime aide to Rep. Bernie 
Sanders, I-VT. It is the first such ordinance to be passed in Vermont.

The ordinance “is a modest but important step that our city can take to help 
protect workers in Burlington, and to send a message that Burlington public 
officials are not going to stand by idly as corporations ship jobs 
overseas,” said Fiermonte. Fiermonte, and others, are not sure if this 
ordinance will impact any of the city’s current contracts.

In the past decade, Vermont has lost more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs, 
and many in-state, large companies are now outsourcing white collar jobs to 
India and China.

Area labor organizers, who had lobbied for the measure, applauded its 
passage. They had argued that tax dollars should not be used to send jobs 
overseas. A concerted effort to support the measure was made by Vermont 
Alliance at IBM activists, the Champlain Valley Central Labor Council, and the 
Vermont State AFL-CIO.

“The city has taken a significant move to support working people by 
acknowledging that public funds should not be used to pay for public 
services that will be performed by workers outside the country unless no 
alternative is available,” said Ralph Montefusco of Burlington, an organizer 
with Alliance at IBM, a group trying to organize a union at IBM, which has made 
it company policy to send good-paying, white collar information technology 
jobs to China and India in recent years.

“The city outsourcing ordinance is not an issue of international trade 
policy; rather it is a question of how public funds, our money, are used to 
pay for our services.

When local jobs are lost, the costs are absorbed by all of us in terms of 
loss of tax revenue, unemployment payments, loss of medical insurance,” 
Montefusco said.

The new law does not apply to the Burlington School District, and only 
covers contracts valued at $50,000 or more. Prior to getting a contract with 
the city, a vendor must state, in writing, that they will not outsource any 
services overseas. If they violate the law, they could be fined up to $500 a 
day. The law does provide an out, but only if the city’s chief 
administrative officer determines that the services to be provided are not 
available in the United States and Canada at a reasonable cost. However, the 
council’s Board of Finance can overrule that decision.

Fiermonte is concerned that Vermont companies are following a national trend 
by outsourcing jobs and more may be on the way. In recent years, National 
Life, Fletcher Allen Health Care, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center 
(SVMC), and Capitol City Press have all sent jobs overseas. Due to public 
pressure, Fletcher Allen and SVMC reversed their decisions to outsource 
medical transcriptionists. Even the State of Vermont outsources some of its 
work related to administering the federal Food Stamp program to a company 
that uses a call center in India.

Fiermonte hopes that other cities will follow Burlington’s lead. “I believe 
that the city of Burlington can play an important role in standing up for 
American workers against the growing trend of outsourcing good paying jobs. 
The ‘outsourcing ordinance’ is an excellent first step,” he said.

Similar proposals have been introduced in the state Legislature, but have 
stalled for lack of support. One proposal would prohibit the state from 
contracting with a call center outside of the United States. The other would 
require state contracts to be performed only in the United States by U.S. 
citizens or legal residents. Both bills were introduced in the 2003-2004 
session, but were not acted upon or reintroduced in the current legislative 
biennium.