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Tennessee funds welfare jobs in India
This is an example of your Tennessee tax dollars at work, creating jobs in India. After you read it ask yourself a question. Could this company be required, as part of the contract, to locate the call center in Tennessee?
By Lynn Redmond - Powell Post
When a welfare recipient in Knox County calls a toll free number asking for help with food stamp problems, the representative of the state of Tennessee who answers the phone is located in Bombay, India. Tennessee's Department of Human Services has entered into a contract with a large international company, eFunds, to provide round-the-clock call centers to help food stamp recipients across Tennessee work out problems with their benefits. At the program's beginning in 1999, Tennessee's callcenter was located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2000 eFrunds closed the Milwaukee center and moved all call operations to Bombay, India. A spokesman for eFunds said of the closing, "It was a matter of staying competitive. It cost us $12 an hour for an employee in Milwaukee and only $3 an hour for an employee in India." These actions of the Department of Human Services stand in stark contrast to the goal of Tennessee's much ballyhooed Families First welfare program which is to get people off the welfare rolls and out into productive jobs. The eFunds company, headquartered in Arizona and with over 2,000 employees in India, recently opened its second call center in Bombay at a cost of $3.4 million. eFunds, which reported a last quarter increase in revenue of 37 percent, administers welfare programs in 47 other states in this country. The company has been one of the leaders in moving call center jobs and other office jobs out of the U.S. to India. India is a favorite with companies like eFunds because large segments of the population already speak English. The employees are given fake names so that Tennesseans will feel more comfortable talking with them. So instead of Ravi or Nirupa, Jason or Ashley answers the phone. Last Thursday I called the food stamp number (1-888-997-9444) and was welcomed to "The state of Tennessee EBT customer service line." When I punched 1 for instructions in English my call was routed to India. After I worked through several layers of recorded messages I talked live with "John." John spoke with heavily accented British-Indian English and tried to be very helpful. When I asked where he was located, he said: "They do not like us to reveal that." Programs such as this speak volumes about the attitude of a state government toward its citizens. That our state would even consider funding a program that takes job opportunity away from the people it claims to help is beyond belief. It is especially unbelieveable because of the Levi's plant in Powell that is one step away from closing forever because of the competition of low-wage foreign workers. If the Levis company is unable to keep the plant open, and if some laid off workers end up using welfare benefits, and if some of those call the toll-free number, it will be the ultimate indignity courtesy of the state of Tennessee.

*****Speaking from experience, I lost my telecommunications industry job to 10 Indian "employees", hired by my H1B manager in Chennai, 3 months before I was RIF'd. This is how corporate America's Patriotism manifests itself. They stand out front, waving the flag, spouting platitudes about how we (society) should be patriots and support our leaders and military and, oh yeah, American businesses, meanwhile, in the boardrooms/backrooms of business, they are moving work overseas and moving Americans to the unemployment lines. Is it time to take them to task?******

posted by An Old Curmudgeon 9:07 AM