One of the lesser known protests during the recently concluded Republican National Party Convention in New York was by some 50,000 workers, many of whom were angry at President George Bush’s policies on outsourcing jobs to India and elsewhere.

The labor unions’ rally on Sept. 7 had many workers expressing disapproval of outsourcing to India and other countries. Myra Bronstein, an information technology worker, was quoted by the Village Voice as saying, “We went to work on a Friday and were told we were being laid off.” She was told by her managers that her job was being outsourced to India and if they wanted to collect their severance pay they would have to train their replacements.

Bronstein, who was employed with WatchMark Corporation in Bellevue, Washington at an annual salary of $80,000, was confronted with what she called “impossibly awkward situation.” A man and a woman, both in their thirties, were introduced to her and she was asked to impart all that she knew. “They were nice people, and excellent in their training and knowledge. It was an impossibly awkward situation. I didn’t see any reason to put them on the spot about it.” He was told their pay would be about $ 5,000 a year.

Bronstein said such replacements had acquired “epidemic” proportions all of the IT world. Many of those present at the rally seemed to know about a controversial comment by the head of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors who reportedly said, “Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade.” That comment riled a large number of labor unions.

The protest in New York was serious as John Sweeney, president of AFL-CIO, the federation of America’s labor unions representing 13 million workers, said the November presidential election was a do-or-die struggle for workers. He said 14 million Americans looking for a job but cannot find one. Some 45 million Americans are without health insurance. “Our good manufacturing jobs are being shipped overseas, and they’re being followed by white-collar jobs,” he said.