Washington : The California Assembly has approved legislation seeking to ban outsourcing of state government service jobs when state agencies sign new deals with private contractors.

The legislation passed on May 27 has to be approved by the California Senate before it can become a law. It was approved by a vote of

44-26. The bill, sponsored by Carol Liu, Democrat from South Pasadena, is aimed at addressing controversial situations such as the use of customer assistance call centres in India and Mexico by a contractor to the state’s food stamp program.

Anti-outsourcing legislation has been introduced in 35 states since the beginning of the year, but only one has become a law, according to Justin Marks, an analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In addition to Liu’s bill, California lawmakers have introduced three other bills in the Assembly and three in the Senate that address issues like the protection of privacy in medical and financial information processed overseas and the disclosure of call center locations.