The elephant joined CWU members at a protest last week

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) fears that several of the company's call centres in Scotland could close as a result of the move.

However, BT has stressed that no permanent jobs in Britain will go because of new centres in India.

BT hopes to employ more than 2,000 staff at call centres in India by the end of this year.

The CWU is worried that this will mean job losses in Britain.

It has predicted that up to 200,000 UK call centre jobs could be lost across the industry over the next decade.

CWU representative Davie Bowman said the protest was a "matter of principal".

"BT is a UK based company that gets most of it's profits from its UK customers so they have a moral prerogative to provide jobs in this country," he said.

"In the north of Scotland they have call centres in Thurso, Alness, Inverness & Fort William.

Unions fear that jobs will be lost at UK call centres

"In the Thurso call centre BT is second largest employer, the only one bigger is Dounreay - if BT goes that's a lot of folk out of work here."

Other unions have warned that Scotland could lose 10,000 call centre jobs to India and Eastern Europe within five years.

The CWU staged a protest against the moving of jobs to India outside the company's annual general meeting last week.

A series of demonstrations is being held across the north of Scotland this week, starting at John O'Groats on Tuesday morning.

Protesters also gathered outside BT's call centre in Thurso, where they were joined by a 12-foot high inflatable pink elephant.

Pinky will be touring Britain over the next few weeks to highlight the union's campaign to end what it describes as the stampede of jobs to India.

However, the protest has been criticised by BT.

The company said no permanent jobs would go in Britain as a result of the transfer of work to India, nor would any agency workers have their contracts terminated.