Democrats Ready Bill To Help Laid-off Software Workers
National Journal's Technology Daily
February 13, 2004 Friday
William New


Some House Democrats are preparing to introduce a bill that would extend to software workers and others in the services sector the benefits for workers affected by trade agreements.

The bill, expected after next week's congressional recess, would extend to services workers the benefits now offered to manufacturing workers under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. Currently, TAA excludes services workers, a point proven repeatedly by the Labor Department's rejection of applications for benefits from software programmers and others.

"There is a clear and abiding need to extend this benefit to people who lose their jobs in the service sector," said Jay Inslee of Washington, a chief sponsor of the bill. "It is imperative to close the loophole in the law."

Other sponsors are Adam Smith of Washington and Charles Rangel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. Inslee said in an interview that service jobs now are being relocated abroad as well, and U.S. laws have not kept up with the changing economy. "This is a new challenge to America," he said.

A similar attempt was made in 2002 but blocked by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif. "I hope the administration heeds the cries of despair across the country" this time, Inslee said.

Eligibility for TAA depends on being able to show either a shift in production overseas that affected jobs or the loss of jobs due to increased imports. Since a 2002 change to the law, it has applied only to countries that have trade agreements with the United States, which does not include some of the largest nations where U.S. jobs are being moved, such as China and India.

"This is supposed to help people who need skills to compete in this global economy," Smith said in an interview. "I don't know if we're going to be more successful [than past attempts]. I just know it's the right public policy, and it's my obligation to pursue it."

Smith has requested a General Accounting Office study on offshore outsourcing that he said would provide Congress with data on the challenges facing workers in the service sector. Currently, TAA helps displaced workers with income support, training, job searching and relocation, health care and tax credits, plus has a special program for older workers.

The new bill, still being fine-tuned, would modify TAA in several ways. It would simplify the eligibility requirements to give Labor more flexibility, extend benefits to contract workers when contracts are shifted overseas, include higher education, and get the Labor and Commerce departments to better track job trends and service-sector imports.

One difficulty in including services workers is in tracking job losses in services due to imports. But the House aide said bill drafters are talking with the Bureau of Economic Analysis to find ways to improve the statistics in that area.