Outsourcing and Offshoring
Outsourcing
Outsourcing of IT and other functions is not
new. Many Unite members are working in companies that specialise in
and attract outsourcing contracts for both the public and private
sectors.
However there are also many potentially
negative effects associated with outsourcing including job losses
in companies which outsource roles and departments, offshoring of
jobs to countries with lower wages and labour standards and attacks
on union negotiated terms and conditions when jobs transfer outside
of a company.
Offshoring
The offshoring wave is set to continue.
Deloitte Consultancy has predicted that 2 million jobs currently
based in western economies will migrate to India by 2008 and the
union predicts that 200,000 call centre and back office processing
jobs will leave the UK by the end of the decade.
The impact has provoked widespread anxiety
about future job security in the communities
concerned.
China has become the biggest exporter of IT
and electronics goods, leading from Japan, the EU and the US.
Globally, electronics companies are consolidating and have been
focusing more on outsourcing and using low cost countries to base
shared service centres and manufacturing plants. This trend
has hit the UK hard, costing hundreds of jobs in a traditionally
strongly unionised sector.
Unite is calling on the government to develop
a best practice benchmark. This would require companies who
wish to establish operations abroad to take into account the likely
impact on employees in both the UK and offshore location.
Transfers of Undertakings
Unite and its predecessor unions have been
involved in negotiating transfers of members from one organisation
to another for the best part of 15 years.
Over this period, we have gained considerable
expertise and experience, and have a successful record of
safeguarding terms and conditions of employment, job security and
collective agreements including union recognition.
The time when we have the best opportunity to
secure the most advantageous outcome for our members is in the
period when negotiations are taking place between the transferor
(original) and transferee (new) employers before the transfer of
employment takes place.
TUPE
Under law employees are entitled to
consultation on major business decisions, including redundancy and
transfers.
The legal rights and duties that apply in
cases of transfer are explained in the Unite guide to TUPE. The
guide is free and available to download from the following
link:
Unite Guide to
TUPE (132KB)
Unite representatives have access to a master
matrix comparing terms and conditions across the sector, which can
be used to assist in collective bargaining and campaigning.
Many companies are involved in the outsourcing
of public services or activities to support public services.
The outsourcing of such activities is covered by the
Code of Practice on Workforce Matters in Public Sector Service
Contracts and the
Cabinet Office Statement of Practice on Staff Transfers in the
Public Sector.
These Codes of Practice cover people working on a public sector
or service contract even where they did not transfer from the
original transferor organisation and may offer the potential to
affect terms and conditions and consultation rights. The Codes are
designed to prevent the emergence of a ‘two-tier workforce’,
dividing transferees and new joiners working beside each other on
the same contracts.
The lessons of Unite's experience with outsourcing are
simple: where the workforce is effectively organised through a
union, employment terms and conditions can be protected -
download a
Unite negotiators checklist
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