Voice of America Off-shores Work to China

National Writers Union Joins AFGE in Protest

Voice of America (VOA), the taxpayer-funded international broadcasting service, exists to "represent America" to the world, according to the VOA Web site. Now VOA is shutting down its Washington, D.C.-based night shift and exporting the jobs of eight newswriters and broadcasters to communist China. VOA says that the outsourcing will save the agency $300,000.

"These jobs should be done by Americans who have security clearances, and there is no need to outsource these jobs to communist China," said Tim Shamble, president of AFGE Local 1812, which represents the journalists whose jobs are moving to the other side of the globe. "They could be done right here in the United States."

The symbolic import of VOA's move is attracting public attention. VOA, after all, was founded, according to its own literature, "in response to the need of peoples in closed and war-torn societies." The Washington, D.C., chapter of the National Writers Union (NWU-DC), a member union of the AFL-CIO that represents independent writers, issued a statement of "vigorous and vociferous solidarity with our colleagues represented by the American Federation of Government Employees at the Voice of America."

In a letter to VOA chief David Jackson, the chapter's executive committee wrote, "This decision [to outsource the jobs to China] is appalling enough in its face. The irony of spreading a message of freedom while removing employment protections, dismantling jobs and off-shoring them to a venue renowned for press repression and serial human rights abuse is cruel and contrary to Americans' best interest."

Read the National Writers Union letter of solidarity

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