Hillary Clinton Walks Fine Line on Outsourcing

India West, Posted: Sep 17, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton, while courting the Indian American community, is walking a fine line on outsourcing, reports India West based on reports from various publications including the Washington Post. Key labor unions have been withholding their endorsements while waiting for clear position statements from the presidential candidates. Sen. Clinton told Indian business leaders in New Delhi, "There is no way to legislate against reality. Outsourcing will continue." But she told students in New Hampshire that she hated "seeing U.S. telemarketing jobs done in remote locations." Sensing this conflict, Sen. Clinton has been asking her Indian-American allies to push Indian companies to invest more in the United States. She told a convention of alumni from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology in July in California that if the United States continued to outsource more and more jobs, "people will begin to feel insecure and may very well seek protection against what they view as unfair competition." Sen. Clinton had helped Tata Consultancy Services, one of India's largest IT firms, land an agreement to open an office in New York state to create at least 100 jobs for the Buffalo area. But that center now only employs 10 people while most of its work goes to India or Indians on temporary U.S. visas. Meanwhile Indian outsourcing companies have hired as their chief lobbyist Robert D. Blackwill, former U.S. ambassador to India for the Bush administration. Indian companies are also putting an American face on their companies. For example, Tata Consultancy Services has hired Mike McCabe as its communications director in America and he represents the company at meetings with U.S. lawmakers.

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