Plan to move UK rail queries to India opposed

One of Britain's largest trade unions has asked the country's private rail companies to reconsider shifting the national rail inquiries service to India.

Rail inquiries are jointly owned by the railway companies and shifting the service to an Indian call centre, according to plans leaked to the Guardian newspaper, would generate savings of £10 million.

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The cost savings are disputed by Amicus, Britain's largest professional trade union, which says the railway industry should also look at the current poor quality of service provided to customers that can only get worse if call centres are relocated abroad.

If the plans go ahead Indian operators at a call centre in Bangalore would be entrusted with answering inquiries about trains from Llandudno (pronounced Clandudno) to Cardiff, disabled access on the London to Scotland service and cheap saver return Fares from Wolverhampton to London.

Earlier this year, National Rail Inquiries chief executive Chris Scoggins visited call centres in three Indian cities and praised them for their 'excellent quality.'

In an internal memorandum to the board of the Association of Train Operating Companies he described how in two call centre operations "the agents had virtually no Indian accent."

Lee Whitehill of the largest professional trade union Amicus said, "In terms of outsourcing to India in general, we don't have a problem with that. In fact we would positively encourage it."

"But in terms of national rail inquiries we will try and block that just in terms of the quality of service that people may expect from an already unpopular company. People are already very upset."

"We think that the cost savings involved in going to India are not going to solve any problems."

"The situation in the United Kingdom with telephone Directory Inquiries is failing miserably, everyone thinks its not working. People think if they do the same with rail inquiries, it will make an already terrible rail service worse."

"There will be a lack of familiarity with the network, there will be problems with place names, with accents, names like Llandudno. In some call centres they try and train people in two days with every possible accent but its impossible to do."

Although Amicus denies it is against the principle of relocating call centres in India, all British trade unions are deeply worried about the level of job losses involved.

In the case of National rail Inquiries, 1,700 jobs are at risk if existing call centres are relocated from Cardiff, Derby, Newcastle and Plymouth to Bangalore.

Last week the UK hub of Bank of America confirmed it too was thinking of relocating its call centres to India.

When pressed on the issue British government officials say the relocation of call centres to India is a two way phenomenon with benefits to both countries.

"Outsourcing is a two way service trade," British High Commissioner-designate Michael Arthur told rediff.com earlier this week.

"We have a service we can supply and Indian companies can supply to us. We're very happy with that."

Amicus trade unionists has yet to be convinced. "We have called on the government to hold an inquiry into the whole phenomenon of outsourcing, how it will work in five and 10 years time," says Whitehill.

"Service sector jobs are going the same way as manufacturing 10-15 years ago and we are asking companies and government to tell us what is coming next."