BT outsources for cheap labour

British Telecom (BT) is to move part of its call centre service to India, at a loss of 2,000 UK jobs.
A total of 2,200 jobs will be created in two centres in Dehli and Bangalore by 2004.

Although BT assured the workers’ union CWU that no compulsory redundancies would result from the move, the union dismissed the assurance as a red herring. BT employs 6,000 agency workers on contract, and this sector of the workforce is now very nervous when individual contracts expire.

India’s call centre companies now employ over 100,000 workers, many of them drilled in UK accents and British culture – pubs, TV soap operas, and football – to enable them to chat to callers.
BT expects costs for the removal to result in around a 30 percent financial saving.

30,000 strike against privatisation

Thousands of oil workers in 26 unions struck in defiance of government plans to privatise the state run companies, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum, which between them account for around forty percent of India’s oil products. The strike also defied a court injunction banning the industrial action.

Sale of the companies has already been postponed due to political opposition, prompting industry watchers to doubt that the sale will go ahead.

Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron Texaco, and Malaysia Petronas are all interested in buying into the companies.
The government intends to sell off over 30 percent of both companies, leaving it owning around 12 percent of Hindustan Petroleum.