"Indian bank workers angered by outsourcing
By Amy Yee in New Delhi
Published: July 29 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 29 2006 03:00
Half a million bank workers in India, home to one of the world's most robust outsourcing industries, walked off their jobs yesterday to protest against moves to outsource their own work to private domestic companies.
The one-day strike was a response to "continuing attacks on the banking industry and bank employees' jobs and job security", said the All India Bank Officers' Association, one of three unions organising the protest.
The unions say outsourcing in India's banking industry would threaten 250,000 jobs.
India's software and business process outsourcing industry is one of the country's biggest engines of growth. Companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro together generate billions of dollars a year from multinational companies shifting work overseas to cut costs.
But union leaders say their complaint is different from that of workers in rich countries who have lost jobs to India.
"We are an impoverished nation," said R.J. Sridharan, general secretary of AIBOA. "India is a labour-oriented country so we need more jobs that are secure. Developed countries have fewer hands to work."
The Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank, has proposed letting banks hire outside agencies for tasks such as processing loan and credit card applications, supervision of loans and data processing.
"The world over, banks are increasingly using outsourcing as a means of both reducing cost and accessing specialist expertise," said an RBI circular that offered guidelines on outsourcing financial services.
Mr Sridharan said outsourcing "absolutely does not lead to more efficiency. It creates complications in rendering good customer service."
He claimed that India's banks were trying to outsource jobs with a view to offset low-cost lending to corporate sectors.
Organisers of the strike are also demanding curbs on sales of stakes in state-run banks, limits on foreign direct investment, and better pensions."
IMHO this is evidence of a global 'race to the bottom', where economic growth will continue to migrate to wherever in the world offers the cheapest slave labor, the most lenient environmental / workplace / benefits requirements etc. I can hear the corporate boardroom conversations now ... " how dare those Indian / Chinese workers now expect a $2 an hour in pay rate - and what's this s#!t about them expecting pensions ? ... call Vietnam ... call Bangladesh .... if we moved our workload from the USA to China / India once, we can certainly move it again !"
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Exactly WTF do they think those of us HERE are doing who've lost our jobs to THEM??

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