Call Centers on BPO Union Radar In New Delhi NCR

4 BPO Companies issued strong protest in New Delhi NCR.

In the last 2 weeks BPO Union have been active researching smaller BPOs who have been mis-treating their staff using all tricks in the harassment book. The big wonder is that since their size is between 20-50 people they do not get noticed. This has already changed.

Starting this month in north India we have found the following BPO Companies to be lacking in good practices and excelling in exploitation of their staff. Some of their staff has already sent in their resumes so we may help them get alternate employment in BPO Companies which treat their staff better. Once these are sorted out we shall move to Mumbai where similar problems exist.

The Companies who have already entered the Hall Of Shame are:

• Gargi Services
• Expertserv
• Fusion eServices
• Pioneer BPO

All of these smaller companies have striking similarity in how they mis-treat their staff all around and in multiple ways. We have already written to their management and hope that they will take our request seriously or face the consequencies of harassed staff in way of strong protest and mass resignations. Until now the staff had stayed since they did not have a collective voice. Now they have found one supported by National Media – many thanks to our supportive Journo friends who have all along been with us.

As we have maintained since we started, we shall try our best to avoid conflict but will not shy away if nothing else works. In all sincerety we hope sanity will prevail among good minds and our friends will get a better deal fromthese companies.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union Supports ‘Rahul Gandhi’ as ‘IT and Telecom Minister’

BPO Union Supports ‘Rahul Gandhi’ as ‘IT and Telecom Minister’

BPO Union feels that the time has come for Rahul Gandhi to take charge at the forefront. He must be given responsibility of running the IT & Telecom Ministry in the Central Cabinet.

Given the state of affairs in the Global Markets we need someone of his aptitude and stature to handle the new economy ministry. Not someone who will time and again be accused of corruption in spectrum sale. The BPO & IT Industries are possibly the best bet for our educated masses, and these provide employment at a very basic level of skills and education. Not to mention the foreign exchange it generates for the county.

We need somone who can and will talk to Obama in the same tone that he does and with the same intelligence and grit. Not someone who will be puppetted by his political masters. A good case in point is Maran (when he was IT & Telecom Minister) and his competence was put to waste by his uncle. A sorry state of affairs.

So we prod our friends in the BPO and IT Industies to garner vocal support for Rahul Gandhi as the next IT & Telecom Minister of India.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

The ’small BIG’ offenders go scott free – Labour Officers unaware

Small BPO and IT Companies are the BIGGEST offenders when it comes to lay-offs.

We have recently been getting some disappointing details about how smaller BPO and IT Companies are taking staff for the worst rides. The complaints for BPO have been mainly from Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Calcutta and Hyderabad. For IT we’ve received details mainly from Bangalore, Hyderbad, Chennai and Calcutta.

Action has been initiated in all these cities through friends. The effects of which will surface in the next 48-72 hrs. As usual we have the support of our friends in various places including Companies, Media and other Unions. We have chosen to individually deal with the Companies who are now known to mis-treat employees.

At most times, without reason they have ousted employees and not paid them any dues. An important question is: What are the labour officers doing when all this is happening across the country. We will target the Labour Officers in our next step which will be initiated as soon as awareness about this fact becomes more public. Incidentaly details of various complaints have already been sent to the respective labour officers in their respective cities (areas of control).

Our stated position has been very clear all along. We’d rather sort out matters without getting into any tangles. But if someone is really spoiling for a fight, by now even large Companies know that we are supported by strong groups (including multiple political outfits) and can take them on, head-on. All depends now on the sincerity and good sense of the Managements of these Companies. Which way it goes is for them to decide. All we ask for is that they follow the law and legal process while laying-off any employee. Any deviation that comes to notice will neither be forgiven, nor forgotten.

Chief
BPO Union 2.0

Indiscriminate lay-offs in the garb of recession

The Central Government has been alerted by BPO Union to this grave issue and a serious note has been taken of it. Expect very strong action to show immediately after the elections are through and  the new Government is sworn in. From the Govt and from us, our supporters and a few political parties whom we have helped reach a very large number of knowledge workers through various forums which we have access to.

Under the garb of “Global Recession” BPO and IT companies are indiscriminately laying off their staff. In many cases unfair treatement is being also dealt out to them. We are full of mails from friends who have been affected. And to add insult to injury, their dues are not being paid correctly.

BPO Union is very sore at the treatement being meted out to us. So if you thought we were sitting on our behinds doing nothing, think again, and think very hard. If you are a defaulter (read senior exec) shunting out people from your company then you better think of it as being caught between a rock and a hard place! Bet you already know that we are not in the way of saying loud words but we sure scream the loudest when we have to be heard.

Its another round of action soon … and we are gearing up for it. Keep watching this space and keep supporting us as ever. Its the time we need each other the most.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

Voice BPO workers risk Ear Attacks and Accoustic Shocks!

Voice BPO workers risk Ear Attacks and Acoustic Shocks!

The average worker who takes voice calls for over 7 hrs each day – is prone to Ear Attack and Acoustic Shock. Both the terms are used by medical practitioners  for very serious ailments which  affect the ear when it is subject to voice abuse.

We are shocked to find out that (and its according to our limited search) India does not have any ‘noise at work law’. The UK has it, and so does the US. But considering that we have a huge young workforce at work in call centers straining their ears for long hours we definitely need one. Or at least some kind of regulation on it.

It has been recorded in many medical journals and in the media, based on research by ENT experts that Call Center employees run the most risk of hearing defects. The scariest things, among many others, that one might encounter are:

• Ear infection caused by use of the same headset by multiple users.
• Chronicle headaches with a constant buzzing sound in the ear leading to an ‘acoustic attack’.
• Stoppage of blood flow in the ear blood vessels leading to an ‘ear attack’.

The UK has a law for ‘noise at work’ and you may wish to follow the links to know more:

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Are-call-centers-turning-a-deaf-ear-to-potential-acoustic-shocks-3F-15991-1/

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20051643.htm

http://www.isvr.co.uk/reprints/ac_shock.pdf

High time that this matter is taken up by the Govt Authorities, Health Departments, Unions, Associations and the Employees themselves. We most definitely urge our friends to contribute articles on the subject so that a proper document can be prepared and sent to the Govt Authorities as well as others concerned.

regards,
Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

WNS does right by its employee under BPO Union’s strong protest

Under strong protest by BPO Union, leading outsourcing company WNS reversed its earlier position to do the right thing.

The Background: One of their employees, Harish Narula was being harassed under the garb of ‘company policy’. All he wanted was a relieving letter from his erstwhile employer so that he could pursue his studies. And an experience certificate would help him. Since he had resigned in a haste, without serving the notice period, he was willing to abide by his signed declaration and honor it by paying the company one months’ salary. In return he wanted a clearance certificate from them. One would imagine this to be a routine exercise, more so since the individual was willing to pay the company for having violated terms of a contract. But the company officials had other plans. The wanted to harass him, possibly to coerce others from leaving the company.

Enter BPO Union: After a long wait, polite letters of request and huge amounts of frustration he wrote to us asking for some support and some advice. He also shared with us some mails from HR which were, to say the least, appalling in their content. They showered contempt and disregard to an ex-employee and were bent upon non co-operation. All of it pointed to their bad intentions. We not only got some sound legal advice to set Harish’s fears to rest, we also wrote a letter to the WNS HR team with a very strong protest against harassment of their employee. What followed was expected. Harish got a call from an AVP who promised all co-operation in the matter and the promise of doing the needful in less than 24 hrs.

Need we say any more … but we do believe that we could help Harish only because he wanted to help himself.

regards,
Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union wishes you a Happy New Year 2009

BPO Union asks for bailout for employees, not companies

The BPO Union has been weighing the options for many weeks now. Taking time has also given us the opportunity to look (and re-look) at what others have to say. There is an agreed opinion among a sizable section of employees.

A Govt bailout should be for employees, not companies. It may sound weird without an explanation, so please give us your undivided attention to present facts and logic. Do feel free to decide for yourself as to what should work and what shouldn’t.

• Since the Govt wants to help, the best way should be to intervene with direct support to employees. Let their salaries be cut by 10-15%, and an additional 15% subsidy only for the salary bill be given to the companies for employee salaries.
  
• For the politician this may just be another popular, yet logically workable option. Let us not forget that early 2009 is an election year for Lok Sabha and the politician cannot overlook approximately 1,200,000 people directly employed by the BPO & IT industries combined. Let him/her evaluate how this program, can be converted to votes, and it can be!
• The US Dollar is touching a high again. No company seems to be happy talking about it. We just want you to keep this detail in mind while evaluating the ‘full’ picture.
• Attrition, by the self-admission of associations and companies alike, is touching a new low. Coupled with the above this will definitely impact the bottom line very positively.
• A very large number of well settled companies – mainly the top 40 – which account for the most part of the BPO employee strength as well as revenues, are getting up the value chain with better billing.
• There is enough evidence that higher-end work is flowing our way, specially the LPO – KPO – Accounting – Finance etc which is where the US and other developed nations need cost and skilled manpower support.
• Only on an assurance that not a single job will be sacrificed without adequate reason, and definitely no mass lay-offs. We have the opinion of more than 1000 employees and they are in total agreement to the suggestion if it can help ease the companies of some financial burden and let us keep our jobs.
• Companies who are riding up the value chain may also be given additional support for training their staff. This and the two points above it will combine to give a desirable end.
• The major flaw in ‘only supporting companies’ is that the Govt will not be able to ensure if the benefits are passed down to employees or they are billed as retained earnings/ profits by companies.
• Many who argue against a subsidy in this case must please look at the way that Govt has been giving out subsidies to sectors where, sometimes, there is no business case to do so. For the BPO industry we have a big case since we earn a lot of foreign exchange, there is so much of employment and in the end all employees contribute towards income tax collections of the Govt of India.

On the exit may we conclusively add that these ideas are the ‘intellectual ideation’ of the BPO Union, since we know that many others will soon gather to scavenge on the limelight that it might get with the media.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union initiates working hours issues – UNITES follows up to the end

We are happy to help as a launch-board for critical issues that have not been taken up till now. But responsible entities like UNITES have woken up to our call on such matters and are taking it from here-on. We’d like to bring to mention that BPO Union and UNITES have already agreed to work with each other. We congratulate Karthik for the pro-active stance he has taken on the issue first raised by us.

IT-BPO union to file PIL against ‘extended’ working hours

We are happy just to be a launch-board from where registered Unions can be passed on the baton and they run with it to the finish line. Our concentration is in the online world and we choose to stick to it. We raised this issue many weeks back, check our posts to know more:

BPO Union questions Evalueserve HR practices

Legal opinion tilts against Evalueserve

We’ve received almost 50 mails since this morning from our well-wishers who have congratulated us on raising this issue to an extent where it is forcefully taken up by UNITES and by the Media. Thank everyone!

regards,
Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union unearths Delhi Call ‘fraud’

One of our friends from Delhi Call has been kind to share some very gory details about the company. The Telecom Client who the call center refers to while claiming that payments have yet to arrive from Australian shores, is none else than the same Promoters themselves. Not stopping there, we are appalled to be informed that they have been reprimanded and fined by the Australian authorities not too long back for ‘fraud’. Thanks again to ur friends who have very meticulously got the information and it is here for everyone to see:

http://www.mobilised.com.au/content/view/1072/116
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/810365/fromItemId/2332
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/793554

Now coming to the still broken promises of payments, we have decided to take up some stringent steps which will ensure that companies like Delhi Call do not offend employees (and in this case a few Vendors too). We’ve got many emails joking about us floating unions for caterers, transporters etc … no thanks, we don’t. In this case we got so much of support from these Vendors that we decided to support them too. But we’ll let it be a rare occurrence.

We call all our friends to write to their CEO (Mr Vishal Gupta) at delhicall@yahoo.com or vishal.gupta@delhicall.com with the subject: “BPO Union requests Payment of Dues of Employees and Vendors”

We hope that this will get them moving in the right direction and if it does not then we will have to fall back on UNITES and other Unions who support us, for some grass-root level action.

We passionately request our friends to do the needful and help our friends in need. Let this forum support those in need today. Thanks.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)