Angry workers take to streets over Telstra outsourcing
Angry workers take to streets over Telstra outsourcing
Unions, workers, consumers and industry experts have planned a rally today outside Telstra's head quarters against the current wave of jobs being outsourced to countries abroad.
So far, one hundred and fifty IBM jobs have been lost already and Telstra has made plans to move 1500 IT jobs to India this year. This is because Telstra plans to cut a total of nearly $1 billion from its IT budget.
The Communiy and Public Sector union (CPSU), which represents telecommunications, call-centre and IT workers including Telstra, IBM, Deloitte Consulting, many government departments and EDS, is organising the rally.
The Australian community has become very uneasy recently about the growing number of IT and call-centre jobs which are offshored to lower wage economies such as India and China.
They claim that the future of Australian IT and callcentre jobs are in danger and they believe the government has shown a lack of support for local workers and the local industry.
In particular, they believe that Telstra has turned its back on staff and communities that have made it Australia's most profitable company.
Adrian O'Connel, the National Secretary for the CPSU says that the whole IT industry in Australia could be in trouble: "To many people in the Australian IT industry are losing their jobs because of this outsourcing. There are 70-80,000 people employed in the industry in Australia and so far 3,000 jobs are going abroad. This is just the tip of the iceberg. We have to stop it escalating before it gets out of hand. The government has to do something about this situation.
"It's all good on well supporting the IT industry in places like India, but not at the expense of people losing jobs in Australia first. This is not only unfair on the workers, but it will also prevent our IT industry from flourishing. It is the future of our economy, but by outsourcing jobs, we will eventually have to reply on other nations to support the industry. It will have a long-term impact on our overall economy too."
CPSU Communication Secretary, Stephen Jones, added: "Given that the Commonwealth is still the major shareholder in Telstra, we are calling them to exercise their influence to ensure Australian jobs remain in Australia."
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