What would have need to change for Victorian-era industrialists to strangle the nascent trade union movement in its cradle, by closing their factories and rebuilding them in the colonies (India for Britain, or Algeria for France)? Would this lead to the earlier eclipse of Europe's economic power, as even more people would be forced to emigrate to escape nightmarishly-bad job prospects?
The crucial enabling technology for offshoring -- the shipping container -- seems perfectly doable with 19th-century technology...
Or would offshoring not be worth it back then? (Did today's massive disparity in purchasing power parity between First and Third Worlds exist back then?)