Scottish Widows to shift 125 jobs to India, employees protest |
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Published
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Sun, 28 Aug 2005 13:05
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LONDON: Lloyds TSB's insurance arm Scottish Widows is shifting at least 125 jobs to India in order to cut costs. The Edinburgh-based company's 4000-or-so employees were told about this decision and Amicus, the representative union, said it will fight the job losses.
Lloyds TSB announced that the move is part of a plan to shift at least 2,500 jobs to India by the end of the year. The bank has set up operations in Bangalore, where it handles processes like credit collection, and in Mumbai, where most of the jobs have been transferred following the closure of a Newcastle call centre.
The bank said it can move the Scottish Widows jobs to India without any redundancies. It added any reduction in roles will be managed through natural turnover, the reduction in temporary agency employees and a decrease in overtime.
It said: "There will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of this work and our aim is to minimise the impact on our people. However, there will be some internal reassignments."
Reacting to the decision, Amicus said it is "short-sighted cost-cutting" and has no benefit to the U.K. economy. A spokesperson described it as a "very worrying phenomenon". "So far, there have been between 18,000 and 20,000 jobs offshored from across the U.K.," he said.
TSB Group Union assistant general secretary Steve Tatlow said it is unacceptable that the work of staff in Edinburgh is being made redundant merely because they can be replaced by workers paid a fraction of the salary in India. He said the workers will seek fullest possible support from MPs, members of the Scottish Parliament, councils and customers of Lloyds TSB and Scottish Windows in its efforts to stop the shift of jobs.
Scottish Widows employs around 2,500 people in Scotland. The transfers are expected to affect the staff at its Dalkeith Road premises in Edinburgh.
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