Pink elephant symbol of UK protests
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 13 November 2003, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI: The British Communication Workers Union (CWU) has found an innovative method to generate awareness about the loss of IT and ITeS jobs to India. According to a report in Indian daily, CWU has recruited the services of a 'pink elephant' to lobby and demonstrate for the union. CWU has created a cartoon character, a pink elephant or 'Pinky' to use it in its campaign, called 'stop the job stampede'. CWU first used Pinky at a British Telecom shareholders' meeting, where it was a roaring success. Now Pinky is being used on postcards, placards and other campaign material used by the union. Pinky is also being used extensively by the union in campaigning against the outsourcing of jobs in small cities like Croydon, Southend, Norwich, Brentwood, Cambridge, Sandrigham, Reading and Coventry. A prancing pink elephant is used to grab the attention of the crowd in a public place. Once there is a big enough crowd, people are requested to sign petitions and contribute money for campaigning against the outsourcing of jobs. The union is also using humans dressed as pink elephants in all its protests against outsourcing. And the elephant is attracting the attention of both the public and the press in the UK. The CWU protests started with British Telecom outsourcing its call centre operations to India. The protest tactics used by CWU are in sharp contrast to the approach adopted by US unions, who are using inexpensive means like the Internet and e-mail lists to communicate their message. Indian software companies, who are facing the brunt of this protest have so far been unable to get their act together to explain the rationale for outsourcing. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is spearheading the campaign for the Indian IT & ITeS industry. It has recently opened an office in the UK to combat the CWU. Nasscom's efforts in the US have not been very successful either, though it had been able to stall legislations in some state legislatures. (Source: Economic Times)

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