U.S. Suspends JEEP Aid

gManZboy writes "As noted last week, the USAID's JEEP (Job Enabling English Proficiency) program has been using U.S. taxpayer dollars to train students in the Philippines to work at outsourcing call centers. An update: After Congressman Tim Bishop and a colleague protested to USAID, USAID decided to suspend funding to the effort. 'In response to the concerns you have raised, the Agency is suspending its participation in the English language training project in Mindanao pending further review of the facts,' said USAID deputy assistant administrator Barbara Feinstein, in a letter Monday to Bishop. 'Furthermore, the Agency has established a high-level taskforce to review these matters.' Bishop says that USAID needs to find ways to assist developing regions without compromising the jobs of U.S. call center workers"

Comments

Really Reads:

[Fluffeh]

You forgot to line the pockets of the right people in an effort to make a quick buck. I would dearly love to see if any of the call centres getting this aid and training have investments from US politicians or friends of them. Never underestimate a woman scorned, but never ever underestimate a polly who you "forgot" to pay.

Re:Really Reads:

[PopeRatzo]

I am not saying that he did a bad thing in trying to put a stop to it, I am just doubting the motives behind it.

My mistake. However, I am inclined, when presented with a US politician who is doing the right thing, to be purely supportive and not question motives. I think that approach is more productive. It happens so rarely, that I would hate to ever dissuade a politician from doing the right thing.

It turns out this congressman, Tim Bishop, is a pretty good egg. He's been consistent about pro-peace, pro-human rights, pro-gay rights, pro-women's rights and pro-prosperity and pro-worker positions. As sleazeball politicians go, he's about as good as it gets (I get all that from his Wikipedia page plus his ratings from certain good government groups). He does not accept corporate campaign funding in any form, his website claims.

You gots to be grateful when you come across one of these guys, know what I mean? Hey, good luck down there. You've got your work cut out for you too. I see Australia is trying to avoid some of the worst mistakes the US has made regarding deregulation, etc. I am glad to hear you support the Pirate Party. I do too, but not many of them run for office here in the States.

Re:Really Reads:

[sjames]

This generation of politicians doesn't seem to be able to do anything that makes ANYONE THAT THEY KNOWs life harder in any shape, way or form - except when it was someone else's fault.

FTFY. They routinely make the lives of people they don't know and won't likely meet harder.

Re:Really Reads:

[r_a_trip]

But the "oh if they speak english it is because they want my job" meme is too silly to think that it is other think that a disguise to more xenophobic instints.

From TFA: "As noted last week, the USAID's JEEP (Job Enabling English Proficiency) program has been using U.S. taxpayer dollars to train students in the Philippines to work at outsourcing call centers."

Sounds like the USA paying to get their own jobs taken.

Re:Really Reads:

[rjstanford]

You may not realize it, but that site (and indeed most government reporting) combines payments from corporations with payments from individuals employed at those corporations. This is generally good, otherwise owners could just bonus themselves and then fund "anonymously" rather than have their companies make donations, but bad in that it blurs that line. Arguably, however, there is no valid way to un-blur it. Its the same data that's used by people who don't do any digging to complain about companies making donations to both candidates in a race.

Bottom line: unless all of your donors are unemployed, you'll show up on that list with corporate references.

Re:Really Reads:

[ArcherB]

He's in favor of Card-Check. That's why I said he's "pro-prosperity". Tim Bishop is moderate to liberal. We've had years of attacks on unions and look at where were at today. The organized labor movement is inextricably tied to the middle class. When one does better the other does better and vice versa. It is as close to a natural law as you will find in economics.

Let's not confuse a union election and card-check. I have no problems with employees wanting to unionize. It becomes a problem when workers must state publicly whether or not they want to join a union. I don't want the union or my employer knowing how I choose. First, my employer could target me for voting for a union, and I'm sure you'll agree with that part. It's the union knowing how I vote that I don't like. There are laws protecting me from my employer. There are not so many laws protecting me from my fellow employees who might want a union or the union itself. The pressure and intimidation from my coworkers and union thugs is much more dangerous, IMHO. Go check out some of the videos on youtube showing the level of intimidation union members can dish out. HERE are union members disrupting a Special Olympics ceremony. Imagine what they could do at your little girl's soccer game if you should vote in a way they don't like!

Under the existing law today, workers have a chance to vote for or against unionization in a private-ballot election that is federally supervised. Card-check would literally strip the private ballot from this process. Why would unions, who claim to be for the worker, want the worker's ballot to be public, EVEN WHEN THE WORKER WANTS IT TO REMAIN PRIVATE!!!????!!!

No, it's not the same thing. A corporation is an aggregate of capital. A labor union is an aggregate of workers. In other words, one is made up of human beings, and the other is made up of money which has been carefully disassociated from its owner in order to convey protections from liability.

No, a corporation is an aggregate of stock holders, which are also human beings. However, a corporation must assume a self-awareness to protect the interests of those stock holders (owners). Just a union claims to speak for the workers, a corporation claims to speak for the stockholders.

I know there are some wrong-headed people who will say "money=speech" but nobody is willing to stand up and say, "money is a person".

I have no problem stripping corporate money from politics. But you have to apply the same rules for unions as you do for corporations. You can't force a worker to give up part of his paycheck every month and then give some of that money to a politician that the worker may not support. Unions are literally forcing workers to contribute to a political campaign. If unions were truly looking out for the worker's best interest and wanted the worker to be represented in the political process, they would give the money back to the worker and say, "donate this to the politician of your choice or give it back if you don't like any of the politicians". That doesn't happen. Unions give 94% to the Democrat party in 2010. I have a hard time believing that 94% of all workers are Democrats.

Why?

[Rouphis]

Tell me exactly why it is our responsibility to find ways to assist developing regions. There are americans that would love call center work. It beats a lot of other bad jobs.

Re:Why?

[Fluffeh]

Tell me exactly why it is our responsibility to find ways to assist developing regions. There are americans that would love call center work. It beats a lot of other bad jobs.

The problem you are missing is that lovely thing called capitalism. You see, if I own a call centre with 100 customers, and I employ 100 staff to operate the phones, I pay the going rate. Lets say it is $10 for nice round numbers. So, I pay $1000 a year in wages. Now, I work out that I can invest $200 and train some chaps in some cheap labour country - like the Phillipines - and then pay them $500 to do the same work. So, I invest that $200, get the training done and the following year, my wages have gone down and I can say that in the first year, I made an extra $300 profit, and every year after that, I make $500 extra profit.

Of course, that paints a pretty worrying picture from a wider view as that means that instead of $1000 being paid to local workers, $500 is being shipped out of the economy and into another country, but not many people want to look from that angle when it impacts their own profit margins.

This sort of thing only works long term if you can get that $500 back from the other country by getting them to buy your goods with the money you give them so that the cash stays local. How is the US Balance of Trade these days you ask? Take a look for yourself.

Re:Why?

[DragonWriter]

Tell me exactly why it is our responsibility to find ways to assist developing regions.

Because when they fail at developing in a way that produces legitimate exports, they instead develop in a way that produces, for instance, narcotics and terrorists as their exports.

Which, humanitarian concerns aside, also has adverse effects on the US economy.

Re:Why?

[Jeeeb]

Tell me exactly why it is our responsibility to find ways to assist developing regions. There are americans that would love call center work. It beats a lot of other bad jobs.

Well in regards to the Philippines in particular there is the rather ugly history of America buying the islands of Spain and then invading them, crushing the Philippines independence movement and ruling them as a colonial power for about 50 years. So you could say there is some moral responsibility there.

For aid in general there are 3 good self interest arguments.

1. Economics: There are more people in Pakistan than Japan or Germany but wanna guess which ones America trades more with? Germany and Japan of course with trade volumes many times greater than American trade with Pakistan. The wealth of those two countries has created enormous new markets for American products. Yes trade involves job losses but the point is that the opportunities created outstrip the losses.

2. Security: Poor undeveloped countries cause security problems. Look at Somalia. If you can it's better to spend some money helping them develop rather than having to continuously deal with the security problems that you otherwise get.

3. Security 2: Aid is the act of buying allies. If the West isn't going to buy then others (China, Russia, Iran) might just step in.

Aside from self interest developed countries giving aid to developing countries has been a long standing principal. In terms of aid per capita the US gives quite generously but it is by no means the most generous. From memory the U.K is the biggest giver per capita. Aid programs like this are simply keeping the US in line with other developed countries in giving aid.

Re:Why?

[dreamchaser]

Except it isn't capitalism when the government is spending tax dollars on it, so your example is flawed. Yes, yes I know government is in the pocket of corporations but since you decided to talk economic theory I had to point that out. Real capitalism would have companies who wanted to outsource funding the training.

Re:Why?

[Fluffeh]

It we are talking theory, lets throw in some game theory. A clever capitalist would spend a fraction of the cost of all the training on lobbying and then have the government foot the bill while making use of the facility to train his new outsourced workers.

Re:Why?

[AHuxley]

It goes back to the cold war and a very long term way of thinking.
The more you help people with your brand, the more they will be imprinted with liking you no matter what.
So you see many parts of the world reaching out to offer aid even when they are in need of aid.
Vietnam, China, East Germany gave farm aid and advice, Taiwan does at lot of great work too. Then you have the classics of the UK, USA and Soviet Union.
Why the aid? If they help the grand parents with simple work, their children might get better jobs and grandchildren might just make it to some top bureaucratic/public/private position. When they hold billions of aid money in one hand and have billions worth of infrastructure projects on their desks... anything to sway a person at any level helps.
Add in listening stations, bases for freedom fighters, stopping a sphere of influence forming in a part of the world with useful, cheap resources.
Then add in training programs, jobs back home making the aid flow, the ability to inject spies as aid workers ...
It was always seen as win, win, win - good edu jobs at home, stopping the bad people and making the world safe for US products and services.
Now other embassies in the region will be rushing to fill the US aid void. The happy locals will welcome their new buildings under other flags and pass by new plaques as they are educated.
The story of been dumped by an old friend will be passed down.

Re:Why?

[cowboy76Spain]

Those who don't know history...

From the beginning of the occupation, the USA was ignoring the philippino rebels and started clahes with them. The main revolutionary leaders that had fought the Spanish were killed by the US Army. The USA converted Philippinas in a colony, the same way Spain had (including government appointed military governors).

After WWII, ships were no longer using carbon so there was less necessity of a refuelling station in Manila to project the US Navy power in the Far East (and also Japan was an occupied country, too). So, the USA "remembered" that they were supposed to have liberated the country 50 years ago and Philippines was allowed to become free.

I called tech support.

[mrmeval]

I called tech support for black box router #5. I ended up talking to someone in a call center in the Bronx.

After about 5 minutes of not being able to understand them I asked to be transfered to India so I could understand them better and get my problem resolved.

Thank you I'll be here all this century.

Re:Boohoo

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's Americans complaining that we are being taxed so that some local fatcat business owner can get an even sweeter deal offshoring jobs. The fatcat is welcome to save money by offshoring and anyone is welcome to compete for the jobs (even at insanely low wages), but neither is entitled to use taxpayer dollars to do so. Choosing to not send your money to your competitors is not racist -- it's common fucking sense.

I don't care

[Beardo the Bearded]

I don't care about your stupid JEEP program. I drive a Mazda.

wtf

[girlintraining]

Bishop says that USAID needs to find ways to assist developing regions without compromising the jobs of U.S. call center workers"

Does our esteemed congress critter realize we conquered the Philipines, and for awhile owned it after WWII? This isn't like offering education programs in Iraq; Some of them are still legally US citizens. We destroyed their infrastructure -- the least we can do is help these people improve their economic infrastructure, of which literacy is an excellent first step. The issue of corporations outsourcing to this country is a separate problem, and one that will not be solved by plunging these people back into illiteracy.

There is a word for men like Bishop, and that word is 'asshole'. This guy's screwing them over for short-term political points in an election year. They deserve economic aid; It's part of the treaty we signed with them along with a mutual defense pact. Plus with the crap in North Korea going down, can we really afford to be pissing on these people's backs? We may need their military support, and they'd be a lot more willing to give it if we were making good on our treaty obligations.

Re:wtf

[girlintraining]

Oh, and just 'P.S.', the philipines right now is experiencing a rise in extremism amongst its muslim population due to high unemployment and low literacy; this program was enacted specifically to address that problem as an informal 'thank you' to that country for being a major supporter of our anti-terrorism efforts after 9/11, particularly in Iraq. So you could say with a straight face that Bishop is supporting terrorism in order to garner more votes in this election. Sick, isn't it?

Re:wtf

[Tofof]

Your version of the Philippines' history is laughably wrong. We gained ownership of the islands around the turn of the century, not by the war as you imply. It's true that despite initially supporting the Philippines independence movement from Spain, we waged our own war against a rebelling populace after we received the islands in the Treaty of Manila (ending the Spanish-American War). The destroyed infrastructure was of the same pre-Industrial-Revolution kind that was largely being willfully destroyed elsewhere in the world. In the interrim, the Philippines prospered alongside the US - we established a modern health care system rivaling our own at the time, ended slavery, formed a national education system and civil bureaucracy. Throughout the 1930s efforts toward releasing the Philippines as a free and independent nation were well underway, with the first independent government elected in 1935 and the transition to be gradual to full independence a decade later. In WWII, the Japanese conquered the Philippines despite American and Phillipine attempts to defend it. Philippine and US troops alike died in the Bataan Death March. We of course hosted the legitimate citizen-elected government as a government-in-exile. After the official withdrawal of US troops, the Philippine Army )with large participation from underground movements) waged a guerilla war with support from what US remnants remained - against the unpopular Japanese-puppet regime. When we reinvaded in 1944, the civilian president Osmena literally accompanied MacArthur onto Leyte Island. We ceded the Philipines as scheduled before the war, in July 1946 - a mere 10 months (nearly to the day) after Japan's formal surrender. You paint a picture of an invading US army laying waste to the country and then holding onto it during and after WWII, when the exact opposite is far closer to the truth.

Re:wtf

[CrimsonAvenger]

Wow, another slashdotter who knows some history. I'm impressed.

It should also be remembered that Douglas MacArthur was, in the period leading up to WW2, NOT a US Army General, but a Field Marshal in the Philippine Army. His US Army rank was reactivated at the beginning of the war in the Pacific.

Which put him in the odd position of being junior to General Marshall, who was a colonel when MacArthur was Chief of Staff of the US Army (the position Marshall held in WW2), while at the same time outranking him (MacArthur's date of rank was decades before Marshall's, and in the US Army, two people of the same rank determine relative position by date of rank).

Re:wtf

[mjwx]

Oh, and just 'P.S.', the philipines right now is experiencing a rise in extremism amongst its muslim population due to high unemployment and low literacy; this program was enacted specifically to address that problem as an informal 'thank you' to that country for being a major supporter of our anti-terrorism efforts after 9/11, particularly in Iraq. So you could say with a straight face that Bishop is supporting terrorism in order to garner more votes in this election. Sick, isn't it?

Erm, no.

Groups like Abu Sayaaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF, no joke) has been around since the 70's. In fact there's been a marked decline in terrorism since the establishment of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (where all those evil mooslims live right). Most of the bombs in the last few years have in fact been inside the ARMM or at least in the surrounding provinces of Mindanao.

But nice try using the old "Terr'ism" bogeyman.

The biggest problem coming out of Muslim Mindanao at the moment is the number of beggars and unemployed travelling to Luzon and other islands.

In the Philippines, as a westerner or a Filipino you are much more likely to be killed by a gun toting, god fearing, Christian Filipino then being killed or kidnapped by a Islamic terrorist. Guns are everywhere over there, it's easy to find a $20 Cebu special (locally produced gun copied from popular designs), complete with no safety catch. A lot of westerners "commit suicide" in the Phils, although that is rare unless you're a complete idiot.

Also that being said, I recommend not going anywhere near Muslim Mindanao.

Looking at this another way...

[TheModelEskimo]

JEEP used USAID funds to train students in the Philippines troubled Mindanao region, which has seen unrest by Muslim activists, to work in call centers and other industries. Feinstein said JEEP was initially conceived as a way to help students in the region integrate into Filipino society. "The intent of the program is to enable these youth to make productive contributions to society, and to reduce alienation and marginalization that may make them vulnerable to the influence of terrorism and extremism."

"LET'S PROTECT AMERICAN JOBS" is just fine, but remember that this is seen as a way toward 2 positives: 1) Offer the Filipinos something worthwhile and valuable to them and 2) reduce the power of extremists in their own territory.

So instead of jerking my knees around, I'd rather see numbers that show how much this costs vs. how many jobs it is "stealing" vs. how much protection the Filipinos and U.S. interests abroad / at home are benefiting from it. And if we cut those funds, where will they really go next?

Re:Boohoo

[NetNed]

Is it me or is the race card becoming like the boy that cried wolf? Really, 9 times out of 10 now I instantly discount anyone that brings race as either a flamebaiter or someone that uses it as a crutch for their own short comings. It's like every forum has to have a person that stretches as far as they can to inject racism in to a topic.

Nice that they feel so strongly about it that they posted anonymous.

What crud:

[Hartree]

This just means that more of the work will go to Luzon where they have more english speakers and better infrastructure.

Creating jobs in Mindanao to help with many of the endemic problems there is a good thing (tm).

It's unlikely that any jobs that would have been outsourced to Mindanao would have stayed in the US anyway. They would have ended up in other places in the Philipines or in Bangalore India or $english_capable_low_cost_location.

(Engage rant mode:)

Bishop is a Democrat and Jones is a Republican, so this is a bipartisan shortsightedness. But it'll get them votes in the short run and that's the truly important thing.

Hey, I'm sure the Moro Islamic Liberation Front approves. Poverty and ignorance is great for maintaining low level wars.

Better not teach them any other skills either. They might do something that would compete with the US in areas that wouldn't be outsourced. We could just make the spreading of ignorance the cornerstone of our foreign policy. What a concept.

Slashdotters are great at talking about how little others know about world politics and how the problems facing other societies end up on your own doorstep. Maybe some of them should take their own advice.

Improved English diction for phone s{c,p}ammers?

[Snorbert Xangox]

When I was at home during the day over the Christmas holiday period, a number of the "hello, this is the technical support centre, your Microsoft Windows computer has a virus [so please install our trojan software to remove the bogus virus, you chump]" scam callers had an accent that sounded Filipino to me, and spoke pretty clearly compared to the Indian accented callers I had heard before. Perhaps I was experiencing the benefits of US-funded English training in the Phillipines.

NB: This is not any racist remark, just my experience of a number of phone calls (1 or 2 per day) that I received when I happened to be home for a week. It got to the point where I was interrupting them with "Oh, you're calling about the computer, aren't you?" within a second of them starting their patter. It was a small consolation to hear the pause and uncertain "..yes?" before I hung up on them.

When the labour of humans with Internet access is so plentiful and cheap, you can try all the same "works one in a hundred times" scams that used only to be economical to automate, but now your scam mechanism can talk, interpret speech, pass a Turing test and solve CAPTCHAs...

Re:rising tide floats all boats

[TaoPhoenix]

Ooh, a nice argument.

I'm not being cynical - "better a Filipino speak fluent English than Chinese" - it's a nice theory.

All that we have to navigate is the local tactics of "Filipinos work for $2 an hour" long enough for those boats to rise on the tide.

It's a VERY tough game.

Re:rising tide floats all boats

[coredog64]

I was considering out-sourcing some work to the Philippines (from a non-American territory, for an international aid organization) and ISTR the going rate for educated Filipinos was ~ $1300/month. It was more expensive than India (again, going by memory, $1000/month) but the Philippines were closer and they have much better infrastructure and English skills.

Re:rising tide floats all boats

[janimal]

Jeez, at those rates you can get Europeans too. They're closer to timezonewise to the West as well.