In another blow to U.S.\nworkers, the country\u2019s largest government-owned power provider is outsourcing\n20 percent of its technology jobs to foreign companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tennessee Valley Authority<\/a> (TVA) notified 120 employees they will lose their jobs this summer. An additional 100 positions are said to be on the chopping block. Capgemini, CGI and Accenture \u2014 companies based in France, Canada and Ireland respectively \u2013 are picking up the work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though TVA claims that jobs will remain stateside, nothing will stop the\nwork from going to foreign nationals on H-1B visas, or overseas. Notably, the\nnew contractors employ large workforces abroad; Capgemini alone has 100,000\nworkers in India. When\nCalifornia\u2019s Pacific Gas and Electric laid off hundreds of workers in 2017, at\nleast 70 percent of its newly outsourced work ended up going to India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four years after presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged to put \u201cAmerican workers first\u201d and halt the use of \u201ccheap foreign labor,\u201d federal, state and local government agencies have contracts employing some 18,000 foreign nationals<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Democratic and Republican lawmakers criticized the TVA\u2019s move, Trump remained silent. His only comment was to suggest that TVA President Jeffrey Lyash\u2019s $8.1 million annual compensation package<\/a> \u2013 the biggest in the federal workforce \u2013 ought to be \u201creduced by a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although corporate executives typically justify outsourcing as an economy measure, TVA told ratepayers not to expect any savings. This prompted union president Mike Biggs<\/a> to grumble, \u201cTVA is supposed to operate as a public trust, but it can\u2019t be trusted.\u201d At minimum, TVA\u2019s gambit stains the tradition of an agency that Congress created in 1933 to employ to Americans emerging from the Great Depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n