Unions Press Clinton on Outsourcing

(Washingtonpost.com) This story was written by John Solomon and Matthew Mosk.

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When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to New Delhi to meet with Indian business leaders in 2005, she offered a blunt assessment of the loss of American jobs across the Pacific. "There is no way to legislate against reality," she declared. "Outsourcing will continue. ... We are not against all outsourcing; we are not in favor of putting up fences."

Two years later, as a Democratic presidential hopeful, Clinton struck a different tone when she told students in New Hampshire that she hated "seeing U.S. telemarketing jobs done in remote locations far, far from our shores."

The two speeches delivered continents apart highlight the delicate balance the senator from New York, a dedicated free-trader, is seeking to maintain as she courts two competing constituencies: wealthy Indian immigrants who have pledged to donate and raise as much as $5 million for her 2008 campaign, and powerful American labor unions that are crucial to any Democratic primary victory.

Despite aggressive courtship by Democratic candidates, major unions such as the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union have withheld their endorsements as they scrutinize the candidates' records and solicit views on a variety of issues.

High on the agenda of union officials is an explanation of how each candidate will try to stem the loss of U.S. jobs, including large numbers in the service and technology sectors that are being taken over by cheap labor in India. During the vetting, some union leaders have found Clinton's record troubling.

"The India issue is still something people are concerned about. Her financial relationships, her quotes - they have both gotten attention," said Thea M. Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

Facing a cool reception, Clinton and her advisers have used closed-door meetings with labor leaders in recent months to explain her past ties to Indian companies, donors and policies. Aides have highlighted her efforts to retrain displaced workers and to end offshore tax breaks that reward companies that outsource jobs.

But the Clinton camp has been pressed by labor leaders on her support for expanding temporary U.S. work visas that often go to Indians who get jobs in the United States, and it has been queried about the help she gave a major Indian company to gain a foothold in New York State. That company now outsources most of its work to India.

"They're obviously defensive about it," observed Lee, who has taken part in such meetings.

Clinton declined repeated requests for an interview about her views on outsourcing. Her campaign advisers, however, say she believes there are no inconsistencies in the comments she has made here and in India or in her actions as a senator.

They say she opposes legislative measures - such as trade barriers - to slow the loss of American jobs if they would restrain free trade. And they say she has supported the expansion of the temporary-worker visas because U.S. technology companies have repeatedly told her the visas are needed to maintain a ready workforce.

At the same time, they say, she has worked hard to secure money to assist workers who have lost jobs to outsourcing and wants to retrain the American workforce to compete better in the global marketplace.

Clinton "believes that we must make sure that we are not allowing other countries to take advantage of American workers and that we do not have policies in place that actually promote outsourcing of American jobs," spokesman Philippe Reines said.

Her rivals for the Democratic nomination have monitored her every comment on the issue. Last year, the India Abroad newspaper reported that she joked to a group of Indian American donors that she could easily win a Senate seat if she were running in the Indian state of Punjab. An aide to her chief foe in the Democratic contest, Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., parodied those remarks in a document distributed to reporters; it listed her political affiliation as "D-Punjab."

At a recent event in Los Angeles, host Nadadur Vardhan told those gathered that they should support Clinton because "she may shift more jobs to India," according to an Indian news account. Asked about the remarks, Vardhan told The Washington Post: "That's not our goal. Our goal is to support her because she is best for this country."

Obama and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who trail Clinton in the polls, have sought to attack her record on outsourcing while arguing that they support more direct government intervention to protect U.S. jobs.

Clinton's camp counters that Obama and Edwards have acknowledged that some loss of American jobs is inevitable in a global economy. Edwards, for example, told a New Delhi conference in 2005 that outsourcing was "an economic reality" and "America must act to ensure that it stays strong and adapts ... to ensure that the American people are better prepared to meet the challenges of the new world." And Obama said just two months ago: "We know that we can't put the forces of globalization back in the bottle. We cannot bring back every job that's been lost."

When Clinton told a union-sponsored debate last month that the nation needed a "better approach" to globalization and trade, Edwards railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement that President Bill Clinton's administration signed in 1993, saying it compromised "millions of jobs." Obama chimed in that "people don't want a cheaper T-shirt if it's costing us jobs."