Oscar Fernandes comes in here. Should he wait as CITU, and perhaps other unions, try to “organise” the BPO sector country-wide and then hope the PM will announce a group of ministers to study the issue of applying labour laws? Or should he join the issue right now and argue publicly what a dreadful idea this whole business is. He will need to make only one argument against red flags over call centres: BPO employees don’t want unions. That is more definitive than the argument that India can’t afford a unionised BPO sector because, as Azim Premji has said, it will do India’s image of being globally competitive no good.

If the labour minister feels particularly combative, however, he can start by asking the unions a question: why are they so keen on “organising” BPO employees?

The extent of unionisation in the organised sector has fallen. According to labour ministry data, membership of trade unions that submitted returns to monitoring authorities was 92.95 lakh in 1989. In 2002, the figure was 69.73 lakh. Growth in organised sector employment has slowed down as well. Between 1983 and 1994, organised sector employment grew at 1.2 per cent annually. Between 1994-2000, the rate was 0.53 per cent. Unions are therefore looking for new markets. They can, of course, organise workers in the booming construction sector. These Indians mostly work without basic safety devices like hard hats and harnesses. But of course an all India construction workers’ union is not as exciting as one for the BPO sector. Reminding union leaders of this class bias and this self-interest may be useful everytime they talk of “cyber coolies”.

... contd.