Back-office outsourcing blues
Workers in India handling tech call-center tasks face long hours and forced, unpaid overtime, according to a report published recently on a union group's Web site.
The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers story said regular shifts of 9.5 hours at outsourcing giant Wipro are usually preceded and followed by an unpaid 15-minute team "huddle." In addition, the story reported a former Wipro employee said that "local managers often 'stretch' shifts by up to two hours, with short notice, no overtime pay and no option to refuse."
Linguistic training "designed to obliterate all traces of local accent" adversely affected the personal life of another former employee, according to the story: "...[T]he linguistics training and cultural impact of the job was so strong even now he occasionally finds it difficult to pronounce some words in his native language. This, he says, has caused problems with friends who think he is aping American culture and has left him questioning his own cultural identity."
A Wipro representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The article, published Saturday, comes on the heels of a finding problems in the Indian industry of business process outsourcing, which refers to farming out tasks such as procurement. According to the story on Silicon.com, more than 50 percent of BPO worker respondents to a survey by consulting firm Hill & Associates said the main reason for leaving a position was that it is a dead-end job. Such dissatisfaction contributes to an attrition rate in Indian call centers that is as high as 40 percent, according to the story.
An intriguing aspect of the story on WashTech's site is a unionization push under way in India's outsourcing world. Union Network International, UNI, is working to bring Indian call center workers together, according to the story.
"Under this initiative, the brainchild of UNI Asia regional secretary Chris Ng, a nucleus of activists are placing weekly advertisements in the call center job sections of the New Delhi press, urging call workers to come forward and discuss their issues," the report states. "The idea is to build for a conference later this year to found a New Delhi chapter of UNI's Centre for BPO Professionals, the UNI-led staff association already functioning in Hyderabad and Bangalore."