Labor

"US corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centres, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash," reports David Zielenziger. "Morgan Stanley estimates the number of US jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years.

"North American marketers are finding their closest service partners halfway around the world," writes Betsy Spethmann. Known as "business process outsourcing," the trend began in the 1990s, when U.S. software developers began hiring Indian programmers during the dot-com boom. Now the trend is affecting technical support and marketing, as companies realize that they get those jobs done cheaper by setting up call centers in places like India. "They're staffed by 20-something college grads who learn American accents and get daily briefings on U.S.

Democrats still reeling from the Bush v. Gore decision in December must have cringed when President Bush announced his choice for solicitor of the Labor Department: Eugene Scalia, the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In his career to date as a labor lawyer, Eugene Scalia has specialized in representing management in labor disputes related to worker safety, especially the dangers of repetitive-stress injuries.

A leaked document, stamped "Confidential: National Semiconductor Communications Plan," shows how the American-based microchip company hired a maverick public relations firm, Beattie Media, to spy on its union and sabotate a BBC investigation into health problems plaguing employees. The company's union has been concerned for years that the firm's chemically intensive process of making computer microchips has caused scores of cancers, fertility problems, reproductive illnesses and miscarriages among its female staff.