More Profitable Is Not the Same as More Productive

This is an important point that Neil Irwin slips up on in an otherwise excellent piece on the growing practice of outsourcing among major corporations. The piece contrasts the experience of Gail Evans, an African American woman working as a custodian for Eastman Kodak in the 1980s, with the experience of Marta Ramos, a Hispanic woman who is currently employed doing custodial work at Apple's headquarters. While the woman working at Kodak was actually an employee of Kodak, the woman working at...