The Hindu Business Line : `Unionise call centre employees'

The report, `Bi-National Perspective on Offshore Outsourcing: A Collaboration between Indian and US Labour', was compiled by five labour organisations in India and the US and released recently. The organisations involved were the Young Professionals Collective, The New Trade Union Initiative, The Centre for Education and Communication (all India-based), Communication Workers of America, and Jobs with Justice (both based in the US).

Among the findings of the report were the disparities in workloads and salaries between the two countries. BPO employees in India had daily workloads as high as six times those faced by employees in the US, while the salaries were exactly the opposite.

BPO employees in India were making a sixth of what their American counterparts made. However, when put in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, Indian BPO employees made 75 per cent of what they would make in the US.

According to the report, the disparity in working conditions and remuneration, coupled with a stable workforce and easy entry means the BPO industry could be the "vanguard for pushing association and collective bargaining in the new economy sector in India."

Unionisation could focus on bringing about equality in working conditions and wage equality in PPP terms across the two countries. The report also recommends that international norms be drafted to standardise labour norms across the globe.

The data for the Indian sector is based on three call centre case studies and interviews of 249 employees from an assorted number of centres. The data for the US sector is based on a previous report called `The US Call Centre Industry 2004: National Benchmarking Report.'

The bi-national report was prompted by the ongoing global debate on offshore outsourcing.

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