(In)visible Traces: Debating Outsourcing

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Debating Outsourcing

Outsourcing. Flattener #5 in Thomas Friedman’s list of ten forces that flattened the world (2005), and how it changed India:

“There are currently about 245,000 Indians answering phones from all over the world or dialing out to solicit people for credit cards or cell phone bargains or overdue bills. These call center jobs are low-wage, low-prestige jobs in America, but when shifted to India they become high-wage, high-prestige jobs. …

[In India,] applicants who are hired at a call center is … [entered] in the training program, which they are paid to attend. It combines learning how to handle the specific processes for the company whose calls they will be taking or making, and attending something called “accent neutralization class.” These are day long sessions with a language teacher who prepares the new Indian hires to disguise their pronounced Indian accents when speaking English and replace them with American, Canadian, or British ones – depending on which part of the world they will be speaking with.” (pp. 24-26)

Great. Or is it?

Arundhati Roy doesn’t seem to think so. Here’s what her thoughts on the same subject, in “Algebra of Infinite Justice” (2002):

“… [in] a “Call Centre College” in Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi … [one could see] how easily an ancient civilization can be humiliated and made to abase itself completely. … On duty they [the call center operator] have to change their given names. Sushma becomes Susie, Govind becomes Jerry, Advani becomes Andy. … Actually it’s worse: Sushma becomes Mary. Govind becomes David. Perhaps Advani becomes Ulysses.

Call Centre workers are paid exactly one-tenth of their counterparts abroad. From all accounts, Call Centres in India are billed to become a multi-million dollar industry. Imagine that – a multi-million dollar industry built on a bedrock of lies, false identities and racism.” (pp. 160-161)

One story. Two opposite ends.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 1:27 PM
S said...: I'm a fan of Roy's political writing and a sympathizer of her perspective.

The glaring mistake in Friedman's cited passage is that in India call center jobs are "high-prestige" jobs. They are not, and nor do they attract the best minds of the country. Also, as Roy pointed out, their pay is pittance compared to what their US peer would receive. The menial and stressful jobs created don't amount to development.

The 245K graduates working in call centers should actually count towards unemployment in India. Will these workers become creative innovators? No. Will these workers become problem-solvers? No. Administrators, managers? No, they will simply help foreign corporations to accumulate wealth.

Is this system really different from the British crown getting richer through the exploitation of Indian labour? No. It's the same game, and we're still playing it. This time we are playing willingly because we have come to accept that shopping malls and cellphones mean development. India has no vision of development beyond the accumulation of these artefacts.

The game will always be won by those who design it. Free trade is anything but free. Yet India is happy to give up more and more of its sovereignty to keep up in an imaginary race.

Names and accents are only a by-product - a relatively unimportant side issue. If these workers are allowed to keep their real names and accents, would Roy then be happy to have these jobs come to India? I hope not. She should be using her clever turns of phrase to critique the real problem (which, to be fair, she does do in large measure.); 1:29 PM
Dewi Susanti said...: Hi Surajit, I find Roy's writings insightful. As an outsider, I thought India's development is pretty amazing, until I read her stuff and your thoughts. I guess in every story, there's always two sides of the coin, isn't it?

I read several articles in the newspaper today about the development in Papua (remote part of Indonesia), and I was shocked to find the other side of the story. How recent development and exposure to Western civilization have caused the culture to embrace alcohol like never before, and mix 100% alcohol with traditional drinks.

Friedman suggests that the call center operators earn more than average salary in India. Is this true? He mentions about the competitiveness to get this job.; 6:55 PM
S said...: Yes, it probably true that the salary is more than anything else available to these young grads. But what are they selling for this price? This is a dead-end job, no prospects, no career development. Only payment until you burn out your youth. Shouldn't they be doing something productive for Indian society?

This is not the only instance of people doing menial jobs for higher pay than they would receive at their home country. India is home to many Bangladeshi rag-pickers, and the US has dug itself into an immigration hole by allowing illegal immigrants in, to do work that is unacceptable for Americans, at less than minimum wage. Just as no one worries about these groups, no one will worry about our graduates - they do the dirty laundry for the corporate machine.

Why is it competitive? Because in India *everything* is. There are more than a billion people - a young population... for any opportunity at all, there is always a queue, always a crowd... always some takers. If the job really was doing dirty laundry in a polluted river - there would be a crowd for that too. When choices are limited, popularity of an option means nothing.

India's "development" is incidental - we have no say, no will, no plan, no agency, to decide for ourselves what we want our country to be, and how we want to interpret the meaning of development. The "west" does that for us, as best suits their needs.

Friedman is suggesting we go around thanking globalization for this great boon - the call-center. It's like thanking the British raj for "teaching" us English. That was done to create an administrative class so Indian revenue could be transfered to British coffers more efficiently. The call center workers are the new-age babus (clerks)... and its truly ironic that their training again starts with learning a new language.; 10:39 PM
S said...: Okay, I'm being very one-sided here, and I realize this. I do stand on that side of the issue, but I'm not always this polemical. If someone takes exception to my words, please understand that saying "no agency" really means, "a lot less agency than is appropriate".

So, in advance I'll say, I stand by what I wrote, but accept that the words might sound stronger than actually meant.; 10:44 PM
Dewi Susanti said...: You make an excellent point in thinking about what the Indian ex-call center operators would do when they are rendered redundant. (How could their ability to speak ‘impeccable’ American or British or Canadian accent weigh in their CV?) Without knowing what is the career ‘structure’ and possibilities offer by such a job, I agree with you that they would probably become production-line workers of the knowledge economy age.

And it highlights the irony of Friedman’s own proposition that adaptability should become one of the main key skills that a knowledge worker should have, as it makes one’s job non-outsource-able. Where would this leave the non-knowledge workers? His views are definitely centered on, if not catered to, developed countries and people who are already ahead of the game so to speak.; 11:44 PM
Arya Gaduh said...: Think of the alternative. If the call centers do not exist, would the people working there be working in creative, innovative industries. Of course not. The Indians that would (and could), would have already worked in the high-end jobs -- irrespective whether the call centers exist.

Indians choose to work on these call centers. Nobody forces them to. If these call centers are not there, a lot of them would simply be unemployed -- and certainly not working in some high-end industries.; 11:50 AM
S said...: Appreciate your comment. I do understand this argument. And now I'd like to invite you to stand back and look at the bigger picture.

Should we not critique this situation where our jobs are created through a 'there-is-no-alternative' model?

I wrote this - "Shouldn't they be doing something productive for Indian society?" - but this is really a critique of the system in general - the big picture.

In other words, I want us to move in a direction where Indian youth can be trained and empowered to innovate. And I am saying that the current state of affairs does not lead in that direction.

Saying that there is no alternative to the current system only supports the point I'm trying to make.; 1:47 PM
Arya Gaduh said...: Surajit:
There may be alternatives -- but these call centers do not stifle the development of these alternatives. These call centers will not stop anyone with the idea (and money) to come up with these alternative, more "high-end" jobs.

Instead, these call centers create a "transitional ground" to employ these Indians when the alternatives are not there yet. An anecdote: A friend of a friend used to work for one of these call centers while working on an academic paper. Now, he's a PhD student in economics at Washington St. Louis.

Now, that can't be bad, right?; 10:30 PM
Kamil said...: Arya, the thing is your friend was working on something else that has considerably more weight than his job i.e. the call centre was just a menial job for whatever it was worth, but I assume not for a career. This is the case of many other people as well, most well known with Einstein.

What Friedman did is he exaggerated in his book that this call centre job is a great job (which Surajit has refuted).; 6:47 PM