Here come the New Protectionists …

U.S. senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is fed up with the American call center industry getting offshored to various low-rent districts around the world, and he wants to impose a 25-cents-per-call “fee” on companies that transfer calls from U.S. customers to foreign countries. Plus, make them tell the customer when a call is being transferred. Plus, of course, keep all the records of which calls go where and submit them to Uncle Sam.

An AP story quotes Schumer: “If we want to put a stop to the outsourcing of American jobs, then we need to provide incentives for American companies to keep American jobs here.”

This might be the first time I’ve ever heard a tax (“fee,” whatever) described as an incentive, though I couldn’t swear to it.

I’m sure we’ve all been teed off at some point with the offshored-call experience — with companies endlessly spouting about their commitment to the customer and how they go all out on customer service, and then you dial a number and you get a rep whose English skills never rise above the “barely intelligible” level. Don’t know about you, but I admit I’ve sometimes been sorely tempted to demand to speak with a native English speaker, preferably someone in the U.S. But always in the back of my mind — with all due respect to U.S. call reps out there currently pounding the pavements — there’s the thought that the person I’m talking to surely needs the job and the money a lot more than most people in this country, and is entitled to a bit of extra patience.

Just in case this attitude seems insufficiently hard-bitten, I hasten to add that there’s good evidence that most of the benefits of shipping service jobs overseas are delivered in the United States. I have to go back a ways to dig it up, though — to 2004, when my colleague Fay Hansen was writing in Business Finance about the backlash against offshoring: “Corporate leaders must begin to educate the public and policy-makers about the necessity that both jobs and products be allowed to move freely in the global economy” (talk about deja vu!). Hansen cited a McKinsey study that showed that for every $1 of U.S. labor costs sent overseas, U.S. companies capture between $1.12 to $1.14 of value; the host country captures just 33 cents (but a much-needed 33 cents nonetheless). Hansen’s story is available here, and is well worth reading as an antidote to the lures of the new protectionism. ###