Jobs have already gone to India

The finance union Amicus MSF said the recent announcement by BT to transfer work to India could be the start of a damaging trend .

On Thursday workers are to hold a demonstration outside the Directory Inquiry Centre in Glasgow as calls are made to protect jobs.

In Scotland almost 2,500 people work in BT call centres.

But plans to move significant chunks of work to India are seen by employees as setting a hugely dangerous trend.

Amicus said it was concerned administrative jobs could also be hit.

Also the pay that people have in India compared to here, they are actually paid �3,000 pounds a year, which is 70p an hour Cathy Newall Communication Workers Union

The union fears the Government is underestimating the problem.

Amicus representative Martin McKenzie Smith, who works with the Prudential, said: "Towards the end of last year we had 250 redundancies, purely because they wanted to export the call centre across to India.

"I know of a personal friend of mine who is working for British Airways in their call centre in Glasgow and they are already talking about shutting down that call centre."

Cathy Newall of the Communication Workers Union is also worried about moves to relocate services.

"We would like the British image to come across with British workers rather than our jobs being taken to call centres in India," she said.

Wage costs are cheaper in India

"Also the pay that people have in India compared to here, they are actually paid �3,000 pounds a year, which is 70p an hour."

But in their first quarterly review of the market, professional body the Call Centre Association (CCA) said 68% of its members reported growth in the past year.

Anne Marie Forsyth, Executive Director of the CCA, said: "The applications for contact centres are growing and they are growing here in the UK also.

"We've got an underlying trend of growth, coupled with some decisions to locate elsewhere for some parts of business."

Protection call

Hugh Jones-Glass, a regional officer for Amicus, has been inspecting Axa Insurance's call centre in the central Indian city of Bangalore.

Mr Jones-Glass said it was no surprise that British companies are relocating.

"This is a highly professional operation in Bangalore. The facilities we have visited are second to none," he said.

"They are the equivalent to, if not better than, some of the call centres in the UK - it is anywhere between a 40 to 60% saving in comparison to the UK.

"I think we have to argue some form of protectionism to save a mass exodus of jobs over to the likes of India, Indonesia and China - I think it's something the government definitely needs to look at."