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June 14, 2003

GOP outsources telemarketing jobs - to India?

This is a story I've been hearing about for a while, but hadn't been able to track down an actual source for until now.

According to Business-Standard.com, the Republican party has hired HCL eServe, an Indian telemarketing firm, to do fundraising for Bush's presidential campaign, giving 75 jobs to people living in a different country, rather than hire actual Americans to do it for them.

HCL eServe, the business process outsourcing arm of the Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies, has bagged a project to undertake a fund-raising campaign for the US Republican Party over the telephone.

This is the first time such a project has been handed out to a company outside the US. The market research and public relations companies engaged by the party usually undertake such projects.

HCL eServe has put in place a team of 75 people to work on the project out of its call centres in Noida and Gurgaon. According to industry sources, the number of seats could be ramped up depending on the success of the campaign. These operators are required to call up people in the US seeking their support for President George W Bush and a donation for the Republican cause.

[...] According to the sources, the calling process involves high degree of automation in order to limit human intervention. “The process is designed in such a way as to limit human intervention. The company wants to complete the process using the integrated voice recording technology, which allows navigation using voice responses,” said the source.

The Republican contract comes on the heels of a successful anti-abortion campaign run by HCL eServe for a US politician.

This isn't a story that's been widely covered, however, despite the potential it carries for creating a great deal of outrage. I've only managed to find 4 other sources for it, two of which carry denials from the Republican National Committee that they've done any such thing.

The initial tip-off I got was in Newsweek's "Letters to the Editor" column a week or so ago, when a reader wrote in, responding to an article Newsweek had carried a week or two before that. The Newsweek article is available only if you pay for an archived copy (which I did, so I could read it for myself), and is focused more on the general phenomenon of companies hiring Indian IT firms to handle their telemarketing, customer service and "help desk" operations. It refers to the Republican Party's hiring of an Indian firm do to fund-raising for them only in a single line ["Indian citizens have even started handling phone-based fund-raising for the Republican Party."]

The story was also carried by Buzzflash with a link back to the Business Standard article. Personally, I don't find Buzzflash to always be the most reliable source, which is why you don't find them referenced very often in this blog. In this case, however, they seem to be relying entirely on the Business-Standard.com (also published on Rediff.com), and containes a later update referencing a UPI article in which the RNC denies that they are the ones who've hired HCL eServe to do telemarketing work for them.

The Republican National Committee, through spokesman Kevin Sheridan, completely denies the allegation, telling UPI, "Any report that the Republican National Committee has hired HCL eServe -- the firm mentioned in the original Business Standard article -- is a case of bad reporting, bad business practices or both. The RNC has no affiliation with HCL. Any inference to the contrary is flat out wrong. The RNC has informed both HCL and rediff.com of the inaccuracy of this report."

Buzzflash, however, notes that neither the original Indian article, nor their story on the situation mention the RNC specifically, and the RNC denial does not rule out that a consulting firm or other political group working for or with them may have been responsible for giving HCL eServe the contract.

Lastly, the Washington Times also reported on the story, noting both the original story from the Business-Standard.com (published via Rediff.com) and the RNC's denial that they are the ones who have hired the firm.

However, Kevin Sheridan, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, tells Inside the Beltway that the national party has in no way, shape or form enlisted the Indian company to conduct fund raising in the name of Mr. Bush or any other nationally elected Republican in Washington.

"Who are these Republicans?" he asks. "They are saying they are fund raising for Republicans, but we (the RNC) don't know who these Republicans are. It's certainly not the Republican National Committee. And I will add that we don't appreciate the inference."

[Like Newsweek, this story is only available via an archival purchase, which I did, so I could read their story first-hand also.]

So, what's the deal here? The story itself referrs to the "Republican Party", which many will probably assume means the "Republican National Committee". The RNC, however, denies it. I've found no retraction, however, of the entire story, nor have I found any stories claiming to "debunk" the entire situation. So it appears that someone, representing a group of Republicans - though apparently not the RNC itself - has contracted with an Indian company to do telemarketing.

Whether it's the RNC itself or another group trying to raise money for Bush's campaign, however, the principle is still the same -- rather than hiring Americans to do work towards raising funds for Bush's re-election, these Republicans think it's in their best interest to hire people in another country to do the work for them. This, in spite of the poor economy - due largely to Republican economic policy - and the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who are in need of a job.

Yes, a lot of American firms are hiring people overseas to do basic phone work for them. As with other jobs that have been outsourced overseas, it's cheaper. I don't like it, but in a capitalistic system, it's bound to happen - companies will find the cheapest way they can to obtain labour so they can make the most money possible.

For a politically-oriented group, however, that is having people call American citizens to give them a pitch on donating money to a Presidential campaign, to hire overseas workers to make those calls just rubs me the wrong way. Even if it's not a group representing the RNC, it reflects the Republican attitude that making money is more important than employing Americans.

Posted by thorswitch at June 14, 2003 08:17 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Christopher Key at June 14, 2003 10:43 PM

Posted by: kriselda jarnsaxa at June 14, 2003 10:58 PM