Hard to celebrate all these lost jobs

The article in the March 23 business section, "Business without borders," was stunning in its poor timing and insensitivity. I felt the article like a slap in the face.

Newscasts have been filled with stories of people being terribly hurt financially in these horrible economic times.

Tens of thousands of people losing their homes and jobs. I then open the paper to read this celebration of outsourcing.

The article seemed to suggest that we should congratulate Affinity Express, an Elgin business that has grown to over 800 employees. I hesitate to even call it an Elgin business since only 15 (2 percent) of its 800 employees work locally.

Only 100 are in the United States. The rest are in India. The company plans to add another 250 employees this year, in the Philippines.

Thanks to outsourcing, the India economy is booming. Partly because of companies like this one, we are losing jobs at an alarming rate. They benefit from tax breaks that encourage the outsourcing of jobs we desperately need right here at home.

It's ironic that the ads this company produces will try and sell us products we can no longer afford to buy..

I lost my job last year when it was outsourced to, you guessed it, India.

My industry? We used to produce elementary school text books. That's right. A huge number of the textbooks your children will be reading are produced in India.

NAFTA has been a colossal mistake. When it began, I was hopeful that we would be able to have free and fair trade with the rest of the world.

Everyone seems to benefit except the American employee, if you're lucky enough to actually be employed.

I have developed my own way of handling the companies who contact me from overseas.

I tell them politely, but firmly, that I will not accept their phone calls until they call me from the United States.

Most of the time they can't understand what I've said since it's not on their cheat sheet of American phrases.

Kathy Thompson

Elgin