HOW HE SEES IT IBM shopping the globe for the cheapest techies

By JIM HIGHTOWER
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
AUSTIN, Texas -- The internal memo is dated April 2005 and tagged: "IBM Confidential." The reason for the hush-hush treatment is that this document is written confirmation of corporate America's intention to send America's middle-class future abroad -- shipping out the jobs in engineering and other sciences that require advanced degrees and pay top wages.
The International Business Machines Corp. has become the leading practitioner of shopping the globe for the cheapest high-tech workers and knocking down the wage floor to the lowest common denominator. Because of the wrenching economic, social, and political impacts this will have on U.S. society, IBM has not wanted to concede publicly that undermining middle-class opportunities is a corporate goal.
Yet this leaked memo confirms that while the top honchos are cutting 13,000 of these high-tech jobs in America and Europe this year, IBM will add 14,000 in the low-wage tech centers of India. Experienced software programmers in our country earn maybe $75,000 a year, creating a sound middle-class base for our economy and communities.
Common good
But the hell with such democratic notions of the common good, say the profiteers; we can replace American programmers with ones from India who'll do the work for an annual $15,000.
That's $60,000 per job, per year, that the corporate and investor elites can take out of the middle class and put in their own pockets.
Rush to India
Adding insult to injury, Robert Moffat, an IBM senior vice president, says that the corporate rush to India is not merely a chase for the cheapest workers:
"It's mostly about skills." He then lectures America's high-tech workers: "You are no longer competing just with the guy down the street, but also with people around the world."
And there you have a sparkling-clear statement of what corporate America thinks of you, and what it has in store for you. How does it think it will hold society together when it knocks all of our wages down to $15,000 a year?
X Jim Hightower is author of "Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back." This article is published in cooperation with minutemanmedia.org.