Senators Byrd, Murray blast
Amtrak job outsourcing plan
By DF Staff and from the Net
WASHINGTON, DC —”America’s national railroad should not have its jobs outsourced to foreign countries,” U.S. Senators Robert C. Byrd, D-WV, and Patty Murray, D-WA, said this past week.
Amtrak’s senior management recently informed Byrd and Murray that the railroad’s Board of Directors, all appointed by the Bush Administration, will invite private vendors to take over major parts of its national reservation system, including vendors based overseas, Senator Byrd’s office reported this past week.
Many American corporations have been outsourcing their customer service functions to foreign countries to save labor costs. However, critics have noted that these operations often send American jobs to countries with weak labor and environmental laws.
“After having to fight to keep Amtrak alive in the face of budgets that would have put the railroad into bankruptcy, now we are fighting to keep Amtrak’s jobs here in the United States,” the Senators explained. “Amtrak is America’s railroad. It is funded in part with American tax dollars. Its jobs should be American jobs.”
Byrd and Murray on July 6 wrote to David M. Laney, Chairman of the Amtrak Board of Directors, to protest the outsourcing plan and to urge the railroad to step away from its efforts to take jobs out of the United States. The letter was also sent to U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta along with the other members of the Amtrak Board.
“If the railroad does not reverse its plans,” the Senators pledged “to offer an amendment to the Amtrak funding legislation that would block the overseas outsourcing plan.” Since the Democrats are in the minority in Congress, such a measure may face difficulty, although Amtrak does have broad bi-partisan support.
Byrd is the leading Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Murray is the leading Democratic member of th