information technology - the labour trade
WORKERS, JUNE 2003 ISSUE
Information technology workers are often thought to be immune from recession and changes in the job market. The image is that there is always someone else ready to hire skilled people. That was probably never true, but insecurity has increased recently. As well as the export of jobs, IT workers are threatened by inward migration.
BT has been under fire for its plans to move call centre work to India. Employees in Britain are unconvinced by company statements that a £100 million outsourcing contract would not affect British operations and staff. The Communications Workers Union protested against the plans, but BT went ahead anyway.
Now there are fresh concerns for BT employees. Software developers are being brought to Britain from Mahindra BT, an Indian joint venture company. Unions allege that the amounts paid are undercutting British rates. The company says that this frees British IT professionals to deal with cutting edge projects, and gives the Indian workers valuable skills. A more realistic view is that this another step in BT's plan to move key skills and work out of Britain.
At IBM, staff will suffer from proposed changes to overtime and call-out rates. People working in Warwick, Manchester and Portsmouth may be up to £6,000 worse off. Their union, Amicus MSF protested at the limited consultation about these changes.
Last year the union criticised the company for a poor redundancy package, which was significantly worse than others in the IT industry. IBM is believed to have shed hundreds of jobs as part of its worldwide restructuring, but has not disclosed the exact number of redundancies in Britain.
Freelance IT contractors are affected as well as direct employees. The Professional Contractors Group, which represents them, believes that companies are breaking work permit regulations. The PCG believes that employers are replacing British IT workers with overseas contractors, mainly from India, at lower rates. They do this by abusing the inter-company transfer scheme, set up to offer fast-track visas to overseas employees with skills unavailable in Britain.
The PCG has evidence that overseas contractors brought in under the scheme have limited IT abilities. Software houses bring over untrained staff, train them and then fire permanent staff.