MELBOURNE: Australian government owned telecommunication company Telstra had signed a 75 million Australian dollars five year deal with Infosys earlier this week to run part of its IT operations. Various Australian trade unions and other workers' bodies have been voicing their concerns against outsourcing of IT projects to foreign companies. Friday's protest at Telstra's Melbourne head office, organised by Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), is the first time that such a public protest has been staged anywhere in Australia. Unionists have been protesting on the issue that hundreds of Australian jobs would be "exported" overseas as a result of deals with IT companies like Infosys. "The danger is between 200 and 400 jobs will go overseas to India and be lost to Australian workers," Chris Clark, CPSU regional secretary, told reporters Friday. "I'm here today to say that what we're seeing here with high tech IT industries being contracted out overseas is what we saw a decade, 15 years ago with industries we said maybe we don't need them - things like textile, clothing and footwear industries where Australian companies simply started sending the manufacture of those things over to Fiji or to China or other places," Victorian Trades and Labour Council secretary Leigh Hubbard is quoted as having said on this occasion. Critics of the unionists' ire, focused mainly against Indian IT companies with significant presence in Australia, have been terming their protest as "racist". Telstra, one of the world's largest telecom companies, has also been trying to ward off criticism of its outsourcing deals with Indian companies by pointing out that outsourced projects would be executed in Australia. Telstra chief information officer Jeff Smith defended his company's deal with Infosys by pointing out that multinationals operated in an economy where they have to do business with other global companies all the time. Smith was quoted as saying that the decision to appoint Infosys supports Telstra's strategic objectives of delivering globally competitive quality, cycle times and efficiency for its customers. The fact that Infosys has been present in Australia since 1999 and has a software development centre in Melbourne employing around 150 IT workers has failed to impress the unionists. "Infosys may start with 200 people, but soon you will find that the staff strength has reduced to 50 or 100 and the bulk of the work is being done in India," said Hubbard. He does not want to believe in Infosys' announcement that it will hire 250 people to cater to the Telstra deal. It was not clear immediately if the contract would be serviced in Australia or India. CPSU is planning to carry its anti-outsourcing campaign further. The union has already gathered more than 200 signatures on a petition to the House of Representatives protesting at local jobs going overseas.
Source: IANS