LONDON: UK's two biggest unions UNISON and UNITE are protesting against the possibility of thousands of back office jobs being outsourced to India by local councils, following budget cuts imposed by the country's ruling coalition at the centre, spearheaded by Conservative party prime minister David Cameron.
A spokesperson at UNISON said: "We are watching the situation very closely." A UNITE spokesman addedd: "We have to be very vigilant."
UNISON has started mobilising its 10,000-odd members working at the Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, for a strike. It claimed that 70 people holding Information Technology (IT) posts have been served redundancy notices and jobs will be offshored to India. UNITE cautioned: "This is only the tip of the iceberg."
"The council plans to outsource more jobs to India," UNISON's regional organiser Mark New said. Its spokesperson added: "The only reason the council is outsourcing jobs is that they can be done cheaper in India." According to unions, "employees who face sacking, have been told to train their replacements in India before leaving."
Capita, a company that is contracted by the Birmingham council to provide IT and call centre services until 2021, confirmed that the jobs to India are being routed through it. "We are exploring how we can utilise some overseas expertise to help deliver a cost-effective addition to our Birmingham operation," it admitted.
In UK, an estimated four lakh government jobs could be lost due to a pruning exercise initiated by the Cameron government. At the Birmingham council alone, UNISON alleged, 7,116 jobs could be axed between now and 2015, resulting in a 37% reduction in workforce. "Other councils could follow suit," the unions added.
The UNITE spokesman said: "It could become a pattern, if Birmingham is allowed to get away. He warned that the Conservative-led council here, supported by the centrist Liberal Democrats, might suffer at the ballot box if it hands jobs to India with tax-payers money."
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