Posted on 09/25/2005 9:18:16 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
BANGALORE: From Europe and North America, India's offshore workers call center operators, data entry clerks and telemarketers may seem like the sweatshop laborers of the information age, toiling long hours for meager pay.
But an international alliance of unions that wants to organize them is finding a very different reality in India: many think of themselves as members of a relatively well-paid, respected professional elite in no need of a union's protection.
"I know these young people have a negative image about unions," says Narayan Ram Hegde of Union Network International, a global alliance of 900 unions.
But "these professionals are more like cyber coolies," he said.
"We hope we will be able to convince them over time."
Hegde is leading the UNI drive to unionize workers in India's back-office outsourcing industry a sector that employs about 350,000 people and is expected to add 80,000 jobs this year.
UNI has been quietly setting up the union for the past year its formal launch date was Sept. 18. But it has so far only managed to attract about 500 recruits, underscoring workers' hostility to unions and the enormity of the task faced by organizers.
"A union would make sense if there was no job security," said K. V. Sudhakar, who does technical support work in IBM's offshore outsourcing center in the western city of Pune. "Here jobs are more, people are less companies are trying all means possible to keep employees happy so that they won't leave."
It's not the first time UNI has encountered such sentiments. A previous effort to start a union for Indian software programmers the highly skilled elite of the business flopped in 2000 after the programmers balked at joining, offering similar reasons.
A similar situation is playing out in the United States where, with manufacturing jobs disappearing, many union leaders say they must organize high-tech workers and academics to survive. But the Communications Workers of America has had a tough job trying to organize white-collar workers at companies such as IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
Global companies have increasingly farmed out any task that can be done over a computer network to low-wage countries. India is the undisputed king of the business with 44 percent of the global market and an industry that earned revenues of US$17.2 billion in 2004.
For UNI, the union drive is critical because jobs outsourced to India cut into the unions' traditional pool of members in Europe and North America.
"We lose members (in the West) because of outsourcing," Hedge says. Setting up new ones in India "will help us have the same negotiating power."
He says the new union can help the industry's workers win better conditions.
The work can be monotonous and grinding fielding calls from irate Americans whose computers are crashing; spending eight hours plugging numbers into a Dutch bank's database; deciphering hundreds of X-rays of sick Europeans in a single shift.
Burnout is common and three out every 10 workers change jobs a year. Hard figures are difficult to come by, but industry experts say that stress forces one in seven workers to leave the industry every year.
Among those who decided to join the union is Raghavan Iyengar, a call center supervisor in Bangalore. He said companies give incentives for those who work extra time, and young workers often ignore health problems, such as insomnia and back pain, to earn those extra bucks.
"The industry's motto is 'shut your mouth and take your money."' he said. "We want to change that."
But the money can be a powerful lure in India, where per capita income hovers around US$500 a year and most people make much less toiling in dusty fields or on steaming city streets.
Call center rookies, in contrast, make about US$2,400 a year roughly twice the pay of first-year teachers, accountants or lawyers and work in air-conditioned offices, many of which have health clubs and well-stocked cafeterias. With experience, the salaries multiply.
The easy money is on display every Friday evening in Bangalore the industry's center where young workers unwind after a week of work in the posh clubs and restaurants that have grown with the outsourcing business.
As for complaints about working conditions, Ruchinder Singh, who works in the southern city of Hyderabad for GE Capital International said he can take them straight to his company's chief executive.
"When my CEO will listen to what I have to say, then why do I need union?" asked Singh, who helps customers around the world use specialized software programs.
"We have a structure in place where the management is constantly in touch with teams and responds within 24 hours to any complaint," he said. "We are not factory workers, we are knowledge professionals every employee is treated as an asset in this industry."
Back-office workers are typically college graduates in their 20s and early 30s and drawn from India's urban middle and upper classes their parents are lawyers, doctors and small and large business owners.
Such a background does not make them fertile recruits for union organizers, said H. S. Sudarshan, a former call center worker and now a recruitment consultant.
Faced with problems, he said, most just quit and take a better job.
"There is opportunity everywhere," he said. "A new job is a better solution than a union."
Sounds like our unions are engaging in a little bit of outsourcing themselves
I'm Shocked that Gambling is taking place here....
Your Chips, Sir.
*putting the chips in his pocket*...Claude Raines.
Not the Union.../sarcasm off :D
"There is opportunity everywhere," he said. "A new job is a better solution than a union."
I bet the unions love hearing that. BWAHAHAHAHA!
Lock the doors and send the kid's to the in laws for Guido is on the prowl. ; )
Good for them.
More on Unions:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/unions.htm
The unions need some way to maintain a cash flow. Americans have had it with unions. As for the organizers' stated desire to "help" the unorganized, it's the usual BS. Unions are in it for the money and power. The rank and file are merely a means to an end.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.