Journal: Unionize To Fight Outsourcing?

I work in an IT department for a large industrial company in the US Virgin Islands. Our IT team consists of about 16 full time employees and contractors that services a user base of roughly 1400 employees. The powers that be informed us this week that a Bangalore based outsourcing firm will be coming down in a few short weeks to interview us for our jobs, take metrics and begin the process of training our H1-B replacements.

Many of us have worked there for years, even decades. We perform well but the management feels that they can save a few buck by hiring non-US workers to take our jobs. Being that this is the US Virgin Islands we are not an 'Employment-at-Will' at will state and has very specific provisions protecting local hires. All things being equal, "V.I. businesses must hire resident workers before non-resident workers, where qualified resident workers are available.Non-resident workers may be used only to supplement the resident labor force." We feel that our rights are being trampled and of course will be pursuing a legal course of action with the VI Department of Labor.

Several of us have bounced around the idea of unionizing to fight the outsourcing of our jobs. Do any Slashdot readers have any advice or similar experiences with unionizing to fight outsourcing? Any suggestions regarding other courses of action we can pursue to save our jobs? What tech unions out there would you recommend we make contact with?

Below is a link to some VI labor laws.

http://www.virginlaw.com/interactive.htm