Unions fear thousands of jobs are at risk, as British Telecom (BT) prepares to transfer some of their UK call centre operations to India, reported the Mail on Sunday. Some other British firms like Prudential and Lloyds TSB have already disclosed similar overheads reduction plans.
Im genuinely concerned about the extent of BTs thinking on the future outsourcing and location of work arrangements. It has all the potential to become a major source of industrial and political dispute, told Jeannie Drake, deputy general secretary of the Communications Workers Union , to the British weekly.
A BTs spokesman confirmed Mail on Sunday some subcontracted jobs had already moved, refusing to rule out starting its own call centres in India: Currently, no BT staff jobs have been moved, but Client Logic, the subcontractor for Openworld technical support, has shifted some work to Bangalore . At the moment, we are talking about tens of jobs rather than hundreds.
BT has started a major restructuring of call centres, cutting the number from 35 to 20, though we still employ 20,000 people in them. The majority of such jobs will always be here [in UK], but as far as transferring jobs to India goes, the answer has to be, never say never, added the spokesman.
Some 400,000 people are employed in call centres throughout the UK and the Call Centre Association still expects a rising tendency despite businesses exodus to low-wage developing countries like India.
2003-01-14
Source: Mail on Sunday
Notícias – Indústria