MA Gubernatorial Candidates Battle Over Job Outsourcing

Friday, October 17, 2014

Nicholas Handy, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

With less than three weeks to go before the citizens of Massachusetts decide who will be the next governor of the state, both Martha Coakley and Charlie Baker are looking for any competitive edge that they can find to garner voters.

Recently, Coakley has been attacking Baker’s claims that he is a proven jobs creator, saying that he allowed outsourcing of jobs while he was the CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, something that Coakley is demanding Baker addresses publically.

“After revelations that Charlie Baker allowed 200 Massachusetts jobs to be outsourced to India as CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Baker has repeatedly refused to answer direct questions about why he chose to allow this to happen,” said the Cokaley campaign. “The shipment of those jobs overseas happened in 2006 when the company was on solid financial footing and well after the turnaround of the company from receivership in 1999.”

The Coakley campaign points out that there have been numerous times that Baker has been asked about the subject of outsourcing jobs and he has yet to address the issue directly, instead saying that the outsourcing had aided in the turnaround of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

Baker Outsourcing to India

While Baker has said in many of his advertisements that he is a proven jobs creator, over 600 jobs were outsourced to India while he was CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, including moving some IT and help desk jobs from Massachusetts to India.

Appealing to a very Democratic Massachusetts, the Cokaley campaign also says that many other Republicans – including Mitt Romney and Georgia Senate candidate David Perdue – have had a history of outsourcing jobs in the past.

“We’ve already learned that while Charlie Baker was turning around Harvard Pilgrim, he did it while raising premiums, cutting coverage for seniors, and tripling his own salary to $1.7 million,” said Coakley’s campaign manager Tim Foley. “Now we learn that even after the turnaround was complete, he continued to send jobs overseas that could have been filled by hard-working men and women of Massachusetts. This is further proof that while Martha Coakley will fight on the side of working families, Charlie will focus on people at the top and leave everyone else behind.”

Baker Calls Out Coakley

While Baker has taken a lot of heat for the outsourcing of jobs to India, Baker has also taken to public forum to call out Coakley for also outsourcing jobs.

Last week, Coakley’s appointees on the Health Connector board announced plans to outsource 250 taxpayer funded jobs, something that Coakley did nothing to stop.

“Rather than hypocritically posturing behind a misleading ad from her Washington special interest friends, the Attorney General should stand up for Massachusetts jobs and instruct her appointees on the Health Connector board to immediately halt their plans to outsource Massachusetts taxpayer funded jobs,” said Baker. "Day after day the Attorney General hides her plans to raise taxes on working families by lobbing baseless criticisms, but when it comes to outsourcing, the AG has some serious explaining to do."

Related Slideshow: MA Election Predictions: Political Experts Weigh In

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Paul Giorgio

GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

MA Governor: Coakley

9th Worcester (House): Green

12th Worcester (House): Naughton Jr.

17th Worcester (House): Belanger

Worcester Senate (Worcester, Hampden, Hampshire and Middlesex): Gobi

Worcester Senate (Worcester 1st): Chandler

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Chris Pinto

Worcester Republican City Committee

MA Governor: Baker

9th Worcester (House): Green

12th Worcester (House): Wyatt

17th Worcester (House): Belanger

Worcester Senate (Worcester, Hampden, Hampshire and Middlesex): Valenzola

Worcester Senate (Worcester, Norfolk): Fattman

Worcester Senate (Worcester 1st): Franco

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Bill McCarthy

Worcester Representative, Massachusetts Republican Party

MA Governor: Baker

9th Worcester (House): Muradian

12th Worcester (House): Wyatt

17th Worcester (House): Campanale

Worcester Senate (Worcester, Hampden, Hampshire and Middlesex): Valanzola

Worcester Senate (Worcester, Norfolk): Fattman

Worcester Senate (Worcester 1st): Franco

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Erin O'Brien

Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass Boston

MA Governor: “Right now, the polls are suggesting a toss up. I think that Coakley has the support of the numbers game; there are a lot more Democrats than Republicans in Massachusetts. But I think that Baker has the advantage of there not being a higher profile race on the ballot. There are also a lot of people who think that what happened to Coakley in losing to Scott Brown in 2010 may happen again against Baker.”

MA Attorney General: “I think that Maura Healey is the biggest star to emerge from this election cycle. I think that she will win by a large margin, by as much as 20-30 points.”

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Tobe Berkovitz

Associate Professor of Advertising, Boston University

“Right now, I think the governor’s race is too close to call. I think that Massachusetts sort of has a political burnout at the moment; I think that the Brown v. Warren race sucked the energy out of the politicos. And when you look at Baker and Coakley, both candidates are solid but neither is the definitive candidate that either party can fully stand behind.”