UK Unions Fight Offshoring

UK unions representing business-process and call-centre employees are planning to establish an independent public investigation into the outsourcing of UK jobs abroad, according to Amicus, which is the largest union for private sector and manufacturing workers.

The investigation, which will address e-commerce, call centres, internet services, IT, and software development, in addition to other, non-IT related, back-office functions, is likely to run in parallel with a study commissioned by the UK Department of Trade and Industry into offshoring.

The investigation is part of a campaign by Amicus, along with other service-sector unions, including CWU, UNIFI and Connect, to highlight what they say are the dangers associated with outsourcing work from the UK to the developing world. The cost savings, say the unions, are so big "that it will be impossible for UK companies, particularly in insurance, banking and IT, to refuse".

Deloitte Consultancy has predicted that two million jobs currently based in western economies will migrate to India by 2008, and Amicus is predicting that we can expect 200,000 call-centre and back-office processing jobs to leave British soil by the end of the decade.

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