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Return to Transcripts main page LOU DOBBS TONIGHT Aired February 2, 2004 - 18:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. Coming up next much more on the president's new spending plan with White House budget director Josh Bolten. Plus, "Exporting America." Software programmers whose jobs at IBM were shipped overseas are now taking on the federal government. That and a great deal more just ahead. Stay with us.(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Exporting America tonight. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost their jobs to cheap foreign labor markets are eligible to receive help from the federal government. However, workers in the service sector are not. That has prompted former employees at IBM's global services division to file a lawsuit against the federal government. Bill Tucker has the report. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If a worker makes these, or this, or works here and loses their job to foreign competition, they qualify for federal assistance under a program known as the trade adjustment act, which provides income support, training benefits and help with job searches. But if you're a software programmer who's lost a job to foreign competition, you don't qualify. Lisa Pineau, a software worker, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit which is seeking to change that. LISA PINEAU, UNEMPLOYED SOFTWARE WORKER: I would like to retrain perhaps in another field that's more in demand. I don't believe there's a choice right now of staying in the tech field. Most of the jobs are pretty much being sent overseas. TUCKER: The Labor Department will not comment on the pending suit, but they do point to the trade adjustment act reform of 2002, which says, the benefits are for workers who make products or articles. Software is not an article, says Labor, it is a service. MICHAEL SMITH, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: Clearly the Labor Department has been entirely and completely incorrect in their determinations that software workers do not create an article. TUCKER: In Congress, there are already efforts to accomplish legislatively what Smith is trying to do in the courts. Congressmen Adam Smith and Charles Rangel are preparing a bill they plan to introduce in the house in the next couple of weeks to extend benefits to workers of service companies. Clearing up any ambiguity in the law. REP. ADAM SMITH (D), WASHINGTON: When people first started being concerned about jobs being lost to competition from overseas, it was primarily in the manufacturing sector. That is where the changes were occurring. While in the last four or five years, we've started to see it happening in the service sector as well. (END VIDEOTAPE) TUCKER: This is not the first time Congress has considered expanding benefits to the service sector. The reform of the trade adjustment act in 2002 originally included the service sector, but it was dropped from the bill because, John, Congress deemed it at the time too -- potentially too expensive. KING: Thank you very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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