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)

BPO Union initiative forces Delhi Call to make amends – dues being paid out

BPO Union initiative has forced Delhi Call to accept its mistake and to make amends by immediately paying out dues. Their CEO Vishal Gupta wrote to us a few days back in response to our stern call for decisive action on the issue. BPO Union rises against Gurgaon based BPO.Though we will respect his active effort and wait to watch him fulfill his promise we will be ever vigilant to see that promises made are kept in full. Here is a bit from his email where he has accepted wrong doing and has promised to make immediate amends.

On the current email which we received from you, we did check up that we only have routine dues pending generally for last 3 months. All other stuck up work is being cleared out.

We have confirmed from our friends in the company that there has been swift affirmative action since our intervention. We have also told them to bring down the routine dues time from three months as we see no logic in holding dues for that long. Except of course as a ploy to hold people’s money so as to stop them from leaving.

Anyways, looks like this one is solved for the most part yet but we will not take our eyes off it unless the issues is completely resolved. In the bargain we have added at least 40 friends and supporters from the company to our growing list. Happy to be part of another resolved issue.

It is important to thank our associates at UNITES (www.unitespro.org), a registered union, who had given us their complete on the ground support to help resolve this issue.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

Happy Diwali

BPO Union Wishes all its friends and supporters

A Happy Diwali 2008

Valleywag is such a drag

BPO Union is something that the guys at Valleywag do not comprehend. Not our observation, it’s by their own admission. Here is what Paul Boutin said in his blog titled ‘Why I don’t make fun of bill collectors’ – maybe because he hasn’t paid his bills and making fun of the collectors can be at his own expense. Here is what he said:

I had no idea what this email was about. It seemed designed to get me to go to some website. For a second I thought, what if I forgot to pay Barney’s New York again? Do they harass you online now? Yet after I clicked the URL at the bottom, I still didn’t understand the story. Is it a blog, a splog, or a dog? On the Internet, David Sedaris might drone, no one can tell if you’re human. Chief, if you want my attention, send me your next layoff.

Let us get the poor guy off the hook by easing his load. He is so confused – we’ll try to answer his queries. Self confessed ‘wags’ (we all know what a wag is ) cannot do much so they will say something banal and hope it impresses people for want of inference.

It was designed to give wags some information since they are always seeking it – ‘information mongers’. Then he remembered his bills – he can thank us for reminding him – let us not blame him since the US is going through one of its worst recessions of recent times. Let us pray for him so he can pay his bills on time. He says next that he still did not understand the story – Dah! what can we say to that friends. When his confusion became unbearable, and it does happen to wags with low IQ levels, he started doing what someone like him would do naturally. He forgot his manners and obliquely called us a ‘dog’ or he was trying to be racist directing insults towards us Indians. To top it all he wanted to know if we wanted his attention. When he sat down to write his piece on us, we already had his attention. Why would we want something that we already have now. Funny guy, you know, we’ve started to like some bits of him.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union – 4 months and 10,000 hits old

We are 4 months two days old and 10,000 hits old. Feels rewarding to be supported the way we have been. The numbers are just starting milestones.

We’ve got support from almost all quarters that we would have imagined. Now is the time to leverage on it and deliver some big results. We’d also like to thank our friends in the media who have been extremely supportive of us – taken our message and spread it exponentially.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union and UNITES talk co-operation

BPO Union has received an offer for co-operation from UNITES Professionals (www.unitespro.org). We have replied to their General Secretary (GS for short) expressing our gratitude at their offer and a humble acceptance of the same. Now we need to decide the specifics of this co-operation with them.

UNITES GS wrote to us showing solidarity towards the Delhi Call Center employees whose pay and incentives were pending when we took up the issue. He also wanted to know what we were doing about it and how we could co-operate with their organization.

We have internally deliberated and decided to keep our initiative as-it-is and get co-operation from UNITES for offline, more traditional if you please, efforts. Time has come to plan two steps ahead of the foreseeable lay-offs. Once we get a clearance from GS we will then make a formal announcement via a press release.

Comments and ideas from one and all are thankfully invited.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)

BPO Union rises against Gurgaon based BPO

Delhi Call Centers Pvt Ltd in Gurgaon and Gaziabad has been holding a few employees’ salary and incentives in totally unacceptable ways. Their employees and surprisingly Vendors too have asked for BPO Union support. And, of course, they have it. We have written to the company. Given below (quoted) is the text of our email with a non-negotiable request:

Delhi Call Centers Pvt Ltd
SCO-34,Sector-14
Old Delhi Gurgaon Road, Gurgaon, 122001
0124 2220944, 0124 3017611, 09811904377 – Mobile
(Source: Google Local)
————————————————–
Dear Sir(s),

Greetings from BPO Union.

We have been approached many employees of your company that their salary and incentives have been kept pending for long times. This may not be the right policy to follow since it will only bring in huge resentment on part of employees. The ones who have come forward with grievances have the support of a large number who have chosen to be in the background for the present time. These friends and supporters of BPO Union have also brought forward the grievances of a few vendors to your company.

We understand that these are trying times but it should not mean that companies will treat their long standing employees badly or effectively resort to work without pay by withholding their salaries and/or incentives. What makes matters worse is ‘false promises’ by your management to one-and-all about paying off dues in full. It is one thing to delay payment but is utterly unacceptable not to honor your commitment when the time to pay arrives. How would you feel if your employees promised you performance but resorted to under-performance as a tool to settle scores with your falsehoods. Or if Vendors would stop delivering services for want of payments from you. We are sure that no one would appreciate it. We only humbly expect you to treat your employees the same way you would like to be treated. Please do not expect to treat us badly and in turn be treated well. We are as human as you are, a bit more humane though.

We hope that you shall settle all the dues of everyone – Employees & Vendors (even they support us and in turn have our support) within one week before or on 24 Oct 08.

In case of failure to do the right thing by your management we shall be forced to initiate protest in all forms legally available us to. We would hope that better sense would prevail and you shall save us and yourselves all the trouble of resorting to peaceful protest – which we assure you we are ready for. It shall be totally upto your actions that how events unfold.

Note: A copy of this e-mail is being sent to friends in the media so that the issue does not go un-noticed and we have your complete and immediate attention for now and for the future. A copy is also being sent to the Assistant Labor Commissioner Gurgaon and labor Commissioner Haryana for their attention.

regards,
Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)
http://bpounion.wordpress.com

Jet Airways shows BPO Employees the way

If the recent action is any indicator of what is happening with the educated employee then it is the start of a new trend. Jet Airways, one of the most respected Airlines brand, may have thought that they could wish their troubles away. No so easy – they must have learnt by now.

They say ‘God helps those who help themselves’ and it is more true for the new-economy employee now than it was ever before. 850 layoffs is not a large number, considering what the IT and BPO Industry have been doing recently. They have already laid-off thousands but no one seems to be noticing. We only wish that our friends who were laid off would come together in union and fight their cause as the Jet employees did. In 48 hrs the Jet staff had undone the immediate damage and forced their management to finding more ‘humane’ ways of laying off staff. Their Chairman (Mr Goyal) made a very emotionally passionate plea but looks like he must learn to act if he wishes to do so on national TV. His lack of sincerity showed. And telling the world that he was under no pressure, did he really feel the world would believe him without question. But we do admire his PR team who did a great job, given the circumstances.

Please do not assume that we are in any way against lay-offs when it is necessary (and possibly the only option) for a business. But it should be used as a tool of rarity not as the first and easiest solution. Anyways, its not going to be easy anymore. The media did give it adequate coverage.

We must say that it did teach us a thing or two on how things will be settled in the future. One of our supporters has already plunged headlong to get the BPO Union some kind of ‘political support’, no active politics for us, and definitely no strikes. Yet it is very important if the Labor Minster gets up and condemns lay-offs which makes companies rethink since the backlash may be very hurting.

We had a discussion with a senior lawyer and he recalled an incident at Chrysler where the bean-counters (Finance) were in favor of closing down an entire factory since it was under-performing. Marketing and Operations argued that there were other ways of turning things around. The Chair spoke last and said that it’d be better in that case to shut down all the plants and the company itself so they’d save a lot of money. He certainly made his point, even though jokingly.

In our immediate effort Legal opinion tilts against Evalueserve we shall be waking up the Labor Ministry to our problems and the unkind deal these big BPO-KPO Companies are giving us. What we need is the average BPO employee to wake up from his/her slumber and ask for legitimate rights. Over-time for starters. Looks like we may need to step up the ante – very unwillingly though.

Chief
(BPO Union 2.0)