One aspect of globalisation is out-sourcing or offshoring: moving jobs from a country where they've traditionally been performed to another, usually on the grounds of lower wages and therefore higher profits. This has already happened with many manufacturing jobs: work is now carried out in China and India rather than in Britain or elsewhere in Western Europe.
But factories aren't the only workplaces to be outsourced, for it also applies to one of the 'boom' occupations of recent years, namely workers in the call centres which are often now the only way to contact your bank, insurers or credit card company. A huge office-cum-warehouse where employees essentially just answer the phone all day doesn't need to be in the same country as the caller or the company's head office. After all, if you live in Dover it probably doesn't matter if your call is answered by someone in Delhi rather than Darlington — indeed you may well not know where the person at the other end of the phone line is. Hence many call centres operate in India, which has a ready and keen supply of educated English-speakers. Workers there are given special classes in British TV, especially soap operas, so they can engage in chit-chat with callers, who often want to do a bit more than just talk about their bank account. Savings for the employers could be as much as 50 percent over a similar operation in Britain.
But now it seems that all is not so rosy in the garden of the outsourced call centre (Guardian, 30 June). For one thing, workers in India have turned out to be not so docile or grateful for the work after all, as absenteeism and staff turnover approach levels found in the UK. This is what happens with so many of the jobs resulting from globalisation: they're boring, there's no career structure, and workers are subject to a lot of petty controls such as the time taken for breaks. And for another, there have been complaints about poor service, and some companies make a point of advertising the fact that their own call centres are still in Britain. There's no doubt some prejudice operating here, against non-native speakers of English, but if companies lose customers because of their perceptions about call centres then they will sit up and take notice.
The sting in the tail of the Guardian article is the information that an Indian out-sourcing company is intending to set up a large new call centre in Belfast, attracted by the cheap property prices there. Capitalism truly is a global system, and those who own the means of production will go to any lengths to boost their profits.
Paul Bennett
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