Union Formation in Indian Call Centres

Introduction

The ‘globalisation’ of business services facilitated by information and consultation technologies has accelerated at breathtaking pace. The relocation of interactive service work and an expanding range of back-office processes from the so-called developed countries of the global north to the developing countries of the global south increasingly constitutes a core element in corporate strategies. The widespread usage of the term global service delivery reflects the transformative role played by transnational corporations (TNCs) and the intervention of states in extending the reach of capital accumulation and in re-configuring service supply chains to multiple geographies. In this rapidly unfolding global landscape where, amongst others, the Philippines, South Africa, Latin American and east European states are emerging destinations, India remains preeminent, accounting for 46 per cent of global business process outsourcing (BPO) (NASSCOM-McKinsey 2005). According to an influential survey, India ‘still offers an unbeatable mix of low costs, deep technical and language skills, mature vendors and supportive government policies’ (Walker and Gott 2007: 29).

[Page 146]Figures produced by the Indian employers' organisation, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), are impressive. Excluding the information technology (IT)/software industry, direct employment in information technology enabled services-business process outsourcing (ITES-BPO) was calculated at 553,000 in 2006–2007 compared to 102,000 in 2001–2002 (NASSCOM 2002, 2007a). This five-fold increase in five years is the statistical expression of the creation of a new Indian workforce as part of a new international division of service labour. Centred initially in the tier one locations–National Capital Region (NCR), Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai (Taylor and Bain 2005)–cohorts of young, Anglophone, middle-class graduates have been sucked into this ‘new economy’ by the Indian third-party outsourcers, multinationals, foreign-owned ‘captives’ and domestic operations that comprise the BPO industry. Yet recently, in conditions of skill shortages, rising labour costs and infrastructural strain, employers have sited facilities in tier two and tier three cities across India. The outcome is a new ‘class’ of white-collar professionals in the principal cities and emergent clusters in lesser cities.

Partly stimulated by the efflorescence of academic interest in call centres, a vigorous literature from contrasting perspectives is now grappling with developments in Indian BPO and the conditions and experiences of its burgeoning workforce. Studies have focused on the transnational, relocated call centre labour process (Remesh 2005; Taylor and Bain 2004, 2005, 2006a), on human resource management (HRM), training and skills (Batt et al. 2005; Budhwar et al. 2006) and on cultural identity (Cohen and El-Sawad 2007; McMillin 2006; Mirchandani, in this volume, 2004; Poster 2007). Salient issues will be discussed next, but this chapter's specific focus is on trade union formation in Indian BPO and employees' attitudes to collective organisation. That only a limited commentary exists on trade union developments (Noronha and D'Cruz 2006; Ofresno et al. 2007; Sandhu 2006; Taylor and Bain 2008) is unsurprising given that the first organisation exclusively devoted to organising call centre/BPO [Page 147]employees was only formed in September 2005. The initiative to found the Union of Information Technology Enabled Services Professionals (UNITES Pro) was taken by the Asia-Pacific arm of the International Trade Secretariat, Union Network International (UNI). Notwithstanding this recent history, the academic literature on the potential for union organisation has already laid the basis for meaningful debate. The dominant position stresses the profound difficulties that unions will encounter in organising BPO employees. Most emphatically Sandhu in an article ‘Why Unions Fail in Organising India's BPO-ITES Industry’ baldly asserts

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