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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Bob Thibodeau, Paul Almeida

Aired January 11, 2004 - 08:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KRIS OSBORN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to talk more about this issue, jobs in America. And joining the discussion are Paul Almeida. He's the president of the Department for Professional Employees. That is a union affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
He joins us live from Washington. We thank him, as well as Bob Thibodeau. He's the CEO of White Label, which helps companies gain a competitive edge in an increasingly global market pace. He joins us now live from Boston.

Welcome to both of you.

Let's start with you, Bob. Of course, given the less than promising numbers for unemployment in December, you heard the report just recently, just now, and the criticisms and concerns. Unemployment still a very significant issue. Describe your rationale for hiring Indian programmers.

BOB THIBODEAU, CEO, WHITE LABEL: Well, the idea behind hiring Indian programmers is not necessarily to displace U.S. workforce. Actually, our idea of using Indian labor and Chinese labor is to help U.S. companies become more globally competitive so that instead of their companies being displaced, they become more competitive in the global workforce and thus are able to compete and create more jobs domestically here in the states.

OSBORN: Paul, what about that? Is globalization in this instance, as Bob referred to, creating more jobs in the United States?

PAUL ALMEIDA, DEPARTMENT FOR PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES: It is not. And we have heard from years now that when we started to lose the manufacturing base in this country, that our future was in high tech and high paying jobs. And that if American workers acquired more skills, they would be able to compete for these jobs that we were losing.

Americans have acquired those skills, as your lead-in piece showed. And they are not getting those jobs, and it's not getting any better.

OSBORN: Well, and what about that, Bob? A recent MIT study found that the Indian programmers had a higher percentage of errors. Are there more errors, and is it hurting rather than helping?

THIBODEAU: Well, I think that depends on what statistic one looks at, whether the Indian code rate errors are higher or less. I think, statistically, if you look at the Software Engineering Institute, the certifications of the Indian companies tend to be broadly more higher across the spectrum. And you see more firms qualified in India as SEI Level 5 or CMM Level 5 than you do American firms, which have been slow to adopt that sort of standardization.

But getting back to productivity and competitiveness, when one looks at U.S. domestic technology workers, the innovation that drives technology growth, the jobs that are created, are not the vast body of those jobs that will be displaced. The jobs that will be displaced are those that support these kinds of innovations and support these kinds of new industries and new companies.

OSBORN: You know, Paul, certainly tech companies have been outsourcing labor to India for quite some time. It's a familiar issue, the information age, global economy, a transformation, if you will. A lot of proponents say that while jobs are lost in some areas they open up in others. Service related jobs, things of that sort.

Weigh in on that. And is that true?

ALMEIDA: Well, it's true to a certain extent, but the jobs aren't equal to what we're losing. Record unemployment in electrical and electronic engineering, computer programming, well above the national rate, higher than during the recessions in the '80s.

What are these workers supposed to retrain for? Low skill jobs? So there's -- we haven't seen this move to this innovation that Bob talks about. The jobs aren't going -- aren't growing there. And so we want to know what those innovation jobs are and where these -- where the American worker is going to go next.

OSBORN: A very significant question. And let's pose that to Bob. I mean, of course, with a number of positive economic indicators, unemployment remains a problematic, to say the least.

THIBODEAU: Well, Paul, Kris, I think when you look at jobs creation and when you look at the idea of innovation in the marketplace, the largest portion of jobs that are created in the U.S. economy -- and this has been true over the last 15 years or 20 years with the technological revolution, and it will continue to be so going forward -- is that the jobs in the startup area, in the smaller companies, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to mid-cap companies, which traditionally haven't had a mechanism for going out and becoming more efficient, globalizing their operations, these are the companies where we think we'll see domestic job growth.

OSBORN: Well, Paul Almeida, Bob Thibodeau, thank you very much for weighing in on an issue that very clearly affects not only the bottom line, but people's lives and livelihoods. Appreciate you joining us for this debate.

ALMEIDA: Thank you.

THIBODEAU: Thank you.

OSBORN: Sure. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 11, 2004 - 08:16   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRIS OSBORN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to talk more about this issue, jobs in America. And joining the discussion are Paul Almeida. He's the president of the Department for Professional Employees. That is a union affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
He joins us live from Washington. We thank him, as well as Bob Thibodeau. He's the CEO of White Label, which helps companies gain a competitive edge in an increasingly global market pace. He joins us now live from Boston.

Welcome to both of you.

Let's start with you, Bob. Of course, given the less than promising numbers for unemployment in December, you heard the report just recently, just now, and the criticisms and concerns. Unemployment still a very significant issue. Describe your rationale for hiring Indian programmers.

BOB THIBODEAU, CEO, WHITE LABEL: Well, the idea behind hiring Indian programmers is not necessarily to displace U.S. workforce. Actually, our idea of using Indian labor and Chinese labor is to help U.S. companies become more globally competitive so that instead of their companies being displaced, they become more competitive in the global workforce and thus are able to compete and create more jobs domestically here in the states.

OSBORN: Paul, what about that? Is globalization in this instance, as Bob referred to, creating more jobs in the United States?

PAUL ALMEIDA, DEPARTMENT FOR PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES: It is not. And we have heard from years now that when we started to lose the manufacturing base in this country, that our future was in high tech and high paying jobs. And that if American workers acquired more skills, they would be able to compete for these jobs that we were losing.

Americans have acquired those skills, as your lead-in piece showed. And they are not getting those jobs, and it's not getting any better.

OSBORN: Well, and what about that, Bob? A recent MIT study found that the Indian programmers had a higher percentage of errors. Are there more errors, and is it hurting rather than helping?

THIBODEAU: Well, I think that depends on what statistic one looks at, whether the Indian code rate errors are higher or less. I think, statistically, if you look at the Software Engineering Institute, the certifications of the Indian companies tend to be broadly more higher across the spectrum. And you see more firms qualified in India as SEI Level 5 or CMM Level 5 than you do American firms, which have been slow to adopt that sort of standardization.

But getting back to productivity and competitiveness, when one looks at U.S. domestic technology workers, the innovation that drives technology growth, the jobs that are created, are not the vast body of those jobs that will be displaced. The jobs that will be displaced are those that support these kinds of innovations and support these kinds of new industries and new companies.

OSBORN: You know, Paul, certainly tech companies have been outsourcing labor to India for quite some time. It's a familiar issue, the information age, global economy, a transformation, if you will. A lot of proponents say that while jobs are lost in some areas they open up in others. Service related jobs, things of that sort.

Weigh in on that. And is that true?

ALMEIDA: Well, it's true to a certain extent, but the jobs aren't equal to what we're losing. Record unemployment in electrical and electronic engineering, computer programming, well above the national rate, higher than during the recessions in the '80s.

What are these workers supposed to retrain for? Low skill jobs? So there's -- we haven't seen this move to this innovation that Bob talks about. The jobs aren't going -- aren't growing there. And so we want to know what those innovation jobs are and where these -- where the American worker is going to go next.

OSBORN: A very significant question. And let's pose that to Bob. I mean, of course, with a number of positive economic indicators, unemployment remains a problematic, to say the least.

THIBODEAU: Well, Paul, Kris, I think when you look at jobs creation and when you look at the idea of innovation in the marketplace, the largest portion of jobs that are created in the U.S. economy -- and this has been true over the last 15 years or 20 years with the technological revolution, and it will continue to be so going forward -- is that the jobs in the startup area, in the smaller companies, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to mid-cap companies, which traditionally haven't had a mechanism for going out and becoming more efficient, globalizing their operations, these are the companies where we think we'll see domestic job growth.

OSBORN: Well, Paul Almeida, Bob Thibodeau, thank you very much for weighing in on an issue that very clearly affects not only the bottom line, but people's lives and livelihoods. Appreciate you joining us for this debate.

ALMEIDA: Thank you.

THIBODEAU: Thank you.

OSBORN: Sure. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com