Monday, August 20, 2007

El Paso Electric Considers Outsourcing


It looks like the problem of good local jobs being outsourced may be hitting the El Paso area soon. The El Paso Times is reporting that El Paso Electric Company's CEO, Ershel Redd Jr. (pictured above), is considering outsourcing about 51 jobs in its information technology department. The IT department is currently located in downtown El Paso.

Redd says he is just looking out for the company and trying to put it in a position where it could grow. He went on to say that no final decision has been made.

But Mayor John Cook doesn't like the idea at all. He said, "At a time we're trying to recriut high-tech jobs to El Paso, it would be counter-productive to have El Paso Electric outsource out of El Paso. My hope is they stay with our local talent. We need to have some loyalty to the community..."

The mayor is absolutely right. After all, who is buying the electricity that the company produces? Wouldn't that be the people of the El Paso area? The company owes its consumers a little loyalty. They need to repay the loyalty of their customers by hiring from the El Paso area. Moving those jobs to some other area, or even some other country, is a slap in the face to the citizens and consumers in El Paso.

It's bad when any American company outsources its good paying jobs to take advantage of lower-paid workers in another country. Too many American companies think they can suck the American consumer dry, and give nothing in return. But it is especially bad, when a company makes all or the bulk of their sales in a particular area, and then won't hire workers from that area.

El Paso Electric needs to drop this silly idea from consideration. It may save them a little money in the short-term, but it will hurt the community they serve and create bad feelings among their consumer base. In short, it's just a bad idea.

1 comment:

  1. I completely agree - a lot of times people don't think long term or at the big picture and it seems to be the case here. Instead of trying to help the community and repaying the loyalty of employees which have been there for many years, many managers tend to look to numbers (costs, revenue etc.) to be their only guide.

    I've seen it too many times. It gets so you get soooo tired of the corporate mentality.

    Concerned Miner in Fort Worth

    ReplyDelete

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