DUDE, WHERE'S MY JOB ?

August 13, 2003 : - I write to Scott Adams creator of the "Dilbert" cartoon . . .

"I liked your cartoon about off shoring tech work to India via Philippines...then back to the USA. Here is something that really happened at my workplace. Fire trucks and police started arriving at my work building everyday. They had received an automatic 911 call and had to respond. This went on for a good three weeks. The fire company was going to put in a 'harassment' complaint against the company if the 911 calls didn't stop. They put a tracer on all our phone lines. It turns out the new H-1B India guys were dialing 911 and then hanging up. You see 91 is the country code to India and when they dialed the next digit, 1, the normal 911 kicked in. There were lots of company memos about how to properly dial India after that! It cost the company about $10,000 in service fees in just one month from the fire department! Hope you can use this in one of your strips. Keep up the good work!  Thanks.

August 14, 2003 : -  Scott Adams replies to me . . .

 "Mark , Thanks for the Dilbert fodder. I appreciate it. Scott Adams".

Then things got serious . . . I filed a lawsuit against the Dept. of Labor . . .

TIMELINE OF THE CASE


August, 2003 I write to Scott Adams of "Dilbert". I wanted attention on this most serious matter.
September 24, 2003 Our TAA Petition Exhibits

I used the patent of Vantage-One software which describes itself as a product, to prove that software is a indeed product.

Quite ingenious, if you ask me!
October 24, 2003 First TAA Denial
November 14, 2003 CT Senator Dodd intervenes on our behalf
November 24, 2003 Our First Appeal
February 3, 2004 Our First Appeal Denied
March 4, 2004 Letter to CT Senator Dodd informing of appeal results
July 8, 2004 Senator Dodd suggests the pro bono legal team of Sidley to handle our arbitration. Good thing he did.
August 2, 2004 CSC's Petition
February 3, 2004 Second Denial
Second Appeal
July 29, 2004 Third Denial
August 24, 2005 This was our last chance. It is called "Appeal on Remand".
January 27, 2006 The U.S. Court of
International Trade
asks the U.S. DOL
to explain all the denials.
March 24, 2006 Finally Approved
May 1, 2006 Case dismissed. We Won!


THE PRESS AFTER WE WON

April 24, 2006 Information Week
April 25, 2006 American Techno Politics
April 25, 2006 Daniel W. Drezner


IT'S EVEN MENTIONED IN BOOKS !
Google Books U.S. Court of
International Trade
(Vol. 30)

Our names are mentioned at the bottom of page 427.
 

This is probably the best thing I ever did.
It came out of anger... 

Myself and two work associates presented the U.S. Department of Labor with a lawsuit.

We contended that our jobs were moved offshore and that we should be entitled to
'Trade Adjustment Assistance' (TAA). For example: let's say a shoe manufacturer in South Carolina decides to get his shoes made in China and lays off some workers as result. Those workers qualify for TAA assistance because they made an 'article' as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor. However, because computer software was not recognized as a 'tangible product' by the DOL, software workers who were layed off when their jobs were shipped to India or elsewhere, did not qualify for TAA assistance.

This really made me mad and I wanted to find out why... It turns out the DOL did not know about the Internet....this is 2003. The DOL determined what was recognized as a 'tangible product' if it went through customs. In other words, a physical thing. This was a DOL law dating back to 1974. We had to inform the DOL that computer software was transferred over the 'ether' of the internet and thereby passed customs completely...and that computer software is a viable product which was sold for profit....We applied in 2003. We kept getting denied. We kept appealing the decision. It took until March 24, 2006 before computer software was recognized as a 'tangible product'...   

Our group was the first to be certified.

 Followed by EDS workers, then IBM workers.

This opened the TAA benefit gates for hundreds of thousands
of computer software workers

I'm very proud of that fact.
I started it and I finished it.

 

So then I thought I'd run for CT State Representative
(Hartford Courant - October 28, 2006) 
 
The Working Families party supported me because if I received 3% of the vote it meant they qualified or more funding or something. I just wanted a chance to tell my story to the public. Working Families supported me at job rallies and set up an interview with the local NBC TV affiliate. I explained how CSC was bringing over people from India and giving them training that I and others like me were not receiving.  I was on the local news that night...that was cool...the word was out...

I didn't win the State Representative seat. No surprises there.
 (Hartford Courant - November 8, 2006)