Indian call centre workers could benefit from a wage hike sooner rather than later, thanks to the initiative of a British trade union that says it wants to increase salaries, improve health and safety working conditions and make sure there is no exploitation of workers at call centres and data processing operations.
Banking union Unifi, which represents 158,000 workers in the United Kingdom, is now planning a membership drive in India among staff employed by Britain's High Street banks in call centres and data-processing operations.
Although union officials stress that plans are still at an outline stage, Unifi national secretary Rob O'Neill said last weekend: "We are very keen that when British jobs go overseas, the people who get them can join a trade union. We can help to improve their terms and conditions through negotiation."
Unifi, working with global trades union congress United Network International has held a series of meetings in Bangalore and Hyderabad to publicise its services and officials say the response has been positive.
Asked why call centre workers could not be represented by Indian trades unions, Unifi spokesman Dai Davies told rediff.com: "We've had discussions with Indian banking unions at the present time and the situation is that they have little resources to be able to go into these new areas. That's why the initiative is coming from the UK."
"Ultimately, we want it all to be operated from India itself, it's a question of helping start up rather than monopolising."
Unifi is sensitive to the low salaries paid to Indian call centre workers, which they say are only 10 per cent of the salary paid to their UK counterparts.
Typical salaries cited for Indian call centre workers are between Rs 9,000 and Rs 16,500 per month.
Davies told rediff.com: "The whole premise is to make sure there is no exploitation. We try to increase the wage rates, we look at health and safety situations and just give people there an opportunity to be heard at the work place."
"Wage rates are high by local standards, but low by UK ones. It's a question of looking at exploitation and rates of attrition, i.e. turnover of the number of people employed there by the call centres, which is increasing. We would also look at training and development to make sure people are protected."
"We find attrition is related to wage rates. Someone who is paying a little more down the road -- but also in terms of the way the work is allocated, the conditions under which people are working, the environment in which they are working and the regime they are working under -- stands to gain more."
"The scenario we are looking at is to see if people are leaving under their own volition rather than being forced out."
Davies added that Unifi's experience of working in what he described as 'more mature' call centre markets had given it unique abilities to organise and negotiate with employers in developing areas.
"We can look it in a network way, or if we can support local trade unions physically and financially. That's well and good," he said.
"A lot of the rhetoric going on about good pay and good quality conditions, we want to make sure they are sustainable."
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