Himalayan News Service

Washington, January 30

Two Colorado state lawmakers have joined other legislators across the US to press for a ban on the outsourcing of tech jobs to India and other countries.

If their bills are adopted by the state legislature, companies that send jobs overseas could be punished by depriving them of state contracts. State Senators Deanna Hanna of Lakewood and Terry Phillips of Louisville, both belonging to the Democratic Party, regretted that too many American companies were moving jobs out of state or overseas, hurting the state economy. Hanna said she was prompted to do something against the hijacking of American jobs overseas when some workers for EDS, a Texas-based company, met her and told her that they had lost their jobs due to outsourcing. EDS, which has a Colorado state contract for computers for human services programmes, has announced that it is shifting technical support jobs to India and Pakistan. Hanna said her measure (Senate Bill 170) would require companies to keep workers assigned to state contracts in the US.

"I know profits are important to companies, but we in Colorado need to do all we can to make sure people have jobs," Hanna said in a press statement. Phillips said he decided to do something about jobs moving out of the state when he heard that IBM announced it was moving 900 jobs out of Louisville, Colorado.

His measure (Senate Bill 169) would bar companies that relocate 100 jobs or more outside the US from getting state contracts for seven years,.

However Chuck Berry, president of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, defended outsourcing saying, "Colorado needs to encourage companies to compete in the global economy.