Both public and private sector workers are losing jobs in the United States to workers overseas—and the AFL-CIO has stepped up its efforts to stop the practice that is destroying the economic security of working families.

In September, Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, launched “Job Tracker.” The interactive database, which is available online at www.aflcio.org, provides information on over 200,000 U.S. corporations and their subsidiaries that are reported to have moved jobs overseas.

Job Tracker searches can be done by company name or ZIP code, or by ZIP code and industry.

“This job crisis is not inevitable,” said AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka when Job Tracker was launched. “Unfortunately, the official policies of the [Bush] administration in Washington promote exporting American jobs instead of attacking the problem.”

Outsourcing of state and local government technology contracts alone are projected to grow from $10 billion in 2003 to $23 billion in 2008, according to a study by INPUT Research; and “at least 40 states offshore administration of electronic benefit cards for the food stamps program,” according to the National Labor Caucus of State Legislators.

A different kind of outsourcing has caught the attention of The Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org). The nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., has an ongoing project called “Outsourcing the Pentagon,” which tracks government spending of taxpayer money on hiring private sector companies to do the work of government.

One of the Center’s latest additions to this project, is an investigative story titled “The Shadow Pentagon: Private contractors play a huge role in basic government work—mostly out of public view,” released Sept. 29.

In addition to in-depth reporting, often supported by information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Center has a listing of Pentagon contractors—company profiles and political contributions.

One of the contractors investigated by the Center is Halliburton. The Center reports that of the more than 150 American companies that have received government contracts worth upwards of $51 billion for work in Afghanistan and Iraq, Halliburton “is by far the largest recipient of contracts awarded.” Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton CEO from 1995 to 2000.

The Center says it “hopes to serve as an honest broker of information—and to inspire a better-informed citizenry to demand a higher level of accountability from its government and elected leaders.”