More than 200 business organizations have formed a coalition to fight restrictions on overseas outsourcing, The Wall Street Journal reported March 1.

Most of the largest trade associations are members of the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Information Technology Association of America.

Officials told the newspaper they will oppose dozens of bills being considered in Congress and in state legislatures that would restrict overseas outsourcing. They were alarmed by a provision in the 2004 Omnibus Appropriation Act prohibiting federal contractors that win work in A-76 competitions from moving the jobs overseas.

The group will also oppose restrictions on visas issued to foreign nationals so they can work in the United States.

Defense Department spending on Services and Support Operations and Maintenance will continue to grow at 6% per year for the next five years, according to a forecast by the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association.

The association said the spending will be driven by: outsourcing and conversion, along with upgrades to training, logistics and supply chain management systems.

Randy Fette of Boeing Co., co-chair of the GEIA forecast team, said, “DOD has budgeted about $140 billion for O&M in FY05, not counting a potential supplemental. Areas that grew in the new budget include security and combat communications accounts, as well as combat support, flight and other training. Segments that decreased include depot maintenance and service-wide transportation as well as base operations.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has published a mandatory computer security standard for all civilian agencies.

The standard was developed following passage of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 199, Standards for the Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems, introduces significant changes in how the federal government protects information and the computerized networks that store information by giving detailed guidance on how to categorize systems.

A copy of the standard is available at http://csrc.nist.gov.

Eleven computer security companies have announced the formation of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, an advocacy group that will try to influence public policy and spending on cybersecurity.

Founding members include Computer Associates International Inc., BindView Corp., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Entrust Inc., Internet Security Systems Inc., NetScreen Technologies Inc., Network Associates Inc., PGP Corp., RSA Security Inc., Secure Computing Corp. and Symantec Corp.

The Defense Department has again suspended the use of the price evaluation adjustment for small disadvantaged businesses because the department exceeded its 5% goal for contract awards to SDBs in fiscal 2003. By law, the price preference is not used whenever the goal is exceeded.

DOD figures show it awarded 5.5% of prime contract dollars to SDBs last year, included 3% to 8(a) firms. (SAA, 2/20)

Self-employment is no bed of roses; in fact, it comes with more than a few thorns, according to a new academic study.

David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College studied self-employed people in the United States and dozens of other countries. Among his findings: “It does seem likely that people have an unrealistically rosy view of what it is like to be running their own business rather than staying with the comparative security of being an employee. The self-employed work under a lot of pressure, report that they find their work stressful and that they come home from work exhausted. Further, they report being constantly under strain, that they lose sleep over worry and place more weight on work than they do on leisure. However, they are especially likely to say they have control over their lives as well as being highly satisfied with their lives.”

He found that the negative effects are felt most strongly by entrepreneurs who have employees.

Blanchflower’s paper, “In Self-Employment: More May Not be Better,” was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It is available at www.nbr.org.