Protest NBC's "Outsourced"
In the worst economy in almost a century, NBC comes across a brilliant idea -- mock the millions of American workers who lost their jobs to low-wage scabs from India!
Let NBC know that displacing American workers is not funny, and has contributed to the destruction of our economy. Millions of Americans are unemployed, many after being forced to train their foreign replacements in the Indian outsourcing industry.
I am disappointed to learn that NBC is considering airing "Outsourced", a show that mocks the rampant and brutal displacement of American workers.
Losing one's job due to an American company's outsourcing initiative can be a traumatic experience and one that has major ramifications. For instance:
- Kevin Flanagan shot himself to death in the parking lot of Bank of America's Concord Technology Center after he and colleagues were laid off in April 2003. The lay-offs were due to the company replacing many computer-related citizen-employees with less expensive non-immigrant-alien guest-workers having temporary work visas. This change included informing the laid-off citizen-employees that the remainder of their tenure was to be spent training their non-immigrant replacements. The laid-off employees were also informed that failure to comply with the requirement to train their replacements and also keep quiet about the transition would result in immediate dismissal, loss of severance pay, and other sanctions.
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/02/BU270141.DTL)
- In Charlotte, North Carolina, Wachovia Bank forced American employees to train their replacements, who were brought in from India at a lower salary. An organizational chart shows a Wachovia work group where 12 of 22 software engineers were brought to Charlotte by a Indian technology consulting company called Synechron.
(http://www.wsoctv.com/news/19047187/detail.html)
- In Connecticut, drugmaker Pfizer forced hundreds of employees to train their replacements who were employed by Indian-based service providers such as Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services and then leased to Pfizer at rates in many cases much lower than American contractors had been making.
(http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Pfizer-Accused-of-Using-US-Workers-to-Train-Foreign-Replacements/)
If NBC chooses to air the program, I will stop watching the network. Furthermore, I will contact all advertising sponsors of the program to inform them of my displeasure and I will stop purchasing their products.
signersigner