Amicus is the United Kingdom's largest manufacturing, technical and skilled persons' union with over 1.2 million members in the public and private services.
Amicus is also vehemently fighting against shifting of services jobs to India. It is trying to trump up political support in the UK against outsourcing, or 'offshoring,' as it prefers to call it.
It is vociferously criticizing companies in the UK that have taken the decision to outsource to produce a blitz of negative publicity against them.
It is touring Ireland and urging local communities to support the union in its stand against companies making the choice to outsource or go offshore.
And it is also 'educating' the public on what it says is the 'potential risks of outsourcing' to India.
In an e-mail interview with Priya Ganapati, Amicus National Secretary David Fleming discusses the outsourcing issue from the UK unions' point of view.
Why is Amicus opposed to the outsourcing of call center jobs to India?
It is not. We are opposed to companies taking bad business decisions on the advice of consultants and offshore providers who claim companies will lose their competitive advantage unless, according to Deloitte Research, they join the 'offshore bonanza'.
How many jobs have been lost in the UK and Ireland because of outsourcing to India and in the future what will these numbers look like?
In the last 18 months, over 10,000 jobs have been lost and over 200,000 will be gone by 2008.
The compelling argument for outsourcing is that it is cheaper for companies who would otherwise be rendered uncompetitive and would have to shut down. Why is Amicus then opposed to outsourcing when it makes for such a strong economic argument for companies?
Amicus is not opposed to outsourcing. The companies involved are currently making a profit but are being wooed by threats that their share price will go into tailspin unless they offshore.
We want offshoring and technological change to be managed transparently so that no one national economy benefits wholly at the expense of another.
There is already evidence that jobs are being offshored from India to China.
The true costs of offshoring are hidden from companies by offshore providers and consultancies who stand to make small fortunes from the process.
It is not enough to talk about substantial wage cuts, the alternative business case shows hidden costs incurred through, training, relocation costs, travel costs, infrastructure development and maintenance and rising wage bills and turn over of staff.
There are further issues around corporate social responsibility and dignity at work where UK companies seek to cut costs by exporting stressful conditions out of the UK.
How is Amicus trying to tackle the issue of outsourcing of jobs to India?
We are conducting research into consumer attitudes and the realities of service provision. We are carrying out a high profile media campaign to meet the following objective.
The first is to show the need for a political strategy involving government, business and the workforce to manage change in an open and transparent manner.
The second is to demonstrate alternative business arguments for and against offshoring.
The third is to show the extent to which consumer backlash will effect company brands if companies fail to offshore in a sensible and progressive way.
We have already managed to convince the UK government to move position. They previously claimed they have no right to tell a company how and where to make a profit and the argument that offshoring will make the UK economy more competitive while at the same time helping India develop.
Thanks to our campaign they have organised an official study into the issue along with round table discussion with business and government departments. This process will take place between January and March 2004.
How is Amicus trying to convince companies in the UK and Ireland to stop outsourcing? What has been the response of the companies to Amicus' overtures?
Company responses vary. For the most part they appear to have taken a decision and then planned strategically to weather the public relations storm which inevitably follows.
What kind of risks do you see in outsourcing to India?
Where do you want to start? 200,000 job losses will occur in the UK as part of a 2 million job exodus from western economies to India by 2008. What is going to replace those jobs?
Second, there will be a loss of intellectual capacity when companies start to come back from India as a result of rising costs and find the skill base is no longer available in the UK.
Third, poor business decisions will lead to massive company losses -- as with mergers and acquisitions four years ago in the UK -- resulting in closures, takeovers and more job losses.
Fourth, wages will be driven down globally as part of a race to the bottom with emerging economies competing on a low wage basis as opposed to skills and quality.
Fifth, employment legislation will end up becoming more flexible and it will be easier to impose redundancies in order to compete in the low wage market.
What kind of quality issues do you perceive with call centres in India?
It stands to reason that direct contact work will suffer due to language, cultural and geographical reasons. Back-office processing and data management, however, does not suffer from the same constraints.
One of the most important aspects of our campaign is explaining that offshoring is not merely an issue of call centre work.
Any job can be exported. Experience has shown that any deviation from a call centre script leads to a breakdown in communications causing anger and frustration.
An Amicus survey has shown that there is also a perception amongst the public, rightly or wrongly, that services will suffer.
Over 70 per cent believed that services would suffer and that there was insufficient training and knowledge to pursue queries satisfactorily.
What kind of political support has Amicus found in the UK for its stand against outsourcing to India?
We have the support of Labour MPs who are members of Amicus in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament.
On the whole though we have broad backbench support. Less so from the government. We think we have not found enough support.
We have managed to convince the Westminster Trade and Industry Select Committee to hold a minor enquiry into the issue and have successfully lobbied in Europe to hold a public hearing with the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.
In Scotland, we have had excellent success in getting the Scottish Executive to hold a Financial Services Steering Group which is a two-year programme to explore the issue with business, unions and government departments.
Amicus has joined forces with the national union of students, as a representative of future customers and employees, to encourage students to think twice about where they take their debt.
The government needs to facilitate a national debate on the issue to ensure that business decisions are taken openly and in a transparent manner.
We are asking the European Union to enact legislation that allows for full disclosure of the location of every contact and BPO centre operating within EU markets.
The UK government cannot turn back the tide of technological development but it can help mediate and manage the impact of globalisation so that no one national economy is able to grow at the expense of another.
Also, do you think the Indian threat is really significant as far as high-skilled jobs are concerned? Or the other countries such as the Philippines and China are just as significant?
Amicus thinks that the India threat is worse than the threat applying to call centres. The Indian workforce is highly skilled and educated and everything from Wall Street analysts, legal support, actuarial work, claims management has already been transferred.
The main concern with the Philippines and China is that they will be the next low cost destination for BPO who have already started offshoring out of India to China.
