India
Submitted by amrc on Fri, 09/28/2007 - 05:49.
No strike rule for outsourcing centres
The Chief Minister of West Bengal has banned strikes in information technology outsource centres (known as business process outsourcing – BPO – in India), declaring that they are ‘essential services’ like the military and utility providers. These BPOs provide services like call centres and back-office keyboard processing for companies primarily in the US and EU, and hence an important source of ‘hard currency’.
Currently BPOs are barely organised, but union centres All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) are about to try to change this. The AITUC wrote recently to the Central Labour Ministry condemning the exploitation, mainly long hours and poor health of workers in this important sector.
The AITUC said that it was getting more and more reports about the health hazards faced by BPO workers and want the government to know exactly how far labour laws are violated in the sector.
But the CITU would not write immediately to the government, fearing that it might frame legislation in favour of the BPO employers.
Yahoo India, 24 November 2004