April 2, 2005
WashTech News
Seattle-based Washington Mutual (WaMu) is the largest savings and loan institution in the United States, and is recognized as a leader in customer service and corporate social responsibility, as well as being a very good place to work.
"
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Take Action! Click the image to contact the CEO of Washington Mutual.
According to its website, WaMu's "strong track record of community support" inspired an ambitious ten-year, $375 billion program aimed mainly at providing home and small business loans to low and middle-income communities.
Other WaMu social responsibility initiatives include a community donation and grants program equivalent to two percent of its pre-tax earnings and a program to improve housing on Native American tribal trust lands.
WaMu also has strong business acumen, which, since its early days in the 1890s, has seen it build up a $300 billion asset base and a 2,500-strong national branch network.
It was with this keen business sense that WaMu, like many of its peers, made an agreement in early 2004 to offshore some of its IT call center work. The idea was that about 35 outsourced staff could help troubleshoot WaMu's IT problems from the New Delhi offices of leading Indian outsourcer Wipro Spectramind.
However, according to former staff working on the contract, WaMu's mission statement to "ensure that every human interaction is caring, courteous and respectful" was not often in evidence in the Wipro's New Delhi offices, particularly to Wipro's employees working on the WaMu account.
Wipro Spectramind makes few bones about forcing staff to take on Western names. According to chief operating officer, Devashish Ghosh, employees working on several processes [contracts] are required to take on Western aliases.
Singling out finance companies as particularly insistent on the practice, Ghosh says: "Here you are working for a customer. The customer prefers that there is a name given which comforts their customer. And if that is the need of the process, the need of the customer...one will have to do it. And these people [staff] are sensitized to it. [They are told they] will have to work under a different name and let's be clear it's the requirement of the customer."
But it is not only names. Wipro Spectramind also often strives for the "Americanization" of U.S. business processes, including intensive linguistic training designed to obliterate all traces of local accent.
Indeed, some experienced call workers have such strong American accents, it is difficult to believe they have never been out of India.
One of them is Rohit Kharbanda*, a former Wipro employee who worked on the 35-strong WaMu Indian team last year.
He says the linguistics training and cultural impact of the job was so strong even now he occasionally finds it difficult to pronounce some words in his native language. This, he says, has caused problems with friends who think he is aping American culture and has left him questioning his own cultural identity.
According to his former Wipro colleague Gagan Sameer, who also worked on the WaMu account, there was constant dialogue between offshore Indian staff and WaMu's U.S. staff even as the jobs were transferred, an indication of how closely decisions on one continent impact the other.
He says, "Every time we got three new people, three people would get fired in the Seattle office. We were always updated. [U.S. colleagues] used to tell us in advance: 'You know you are getting three new guys today.' Initially our reaction was "How do you know?' And the U.S. colleague would say, "You just let me know when these new guys come and I'll
tell you why.' And when the new guys would come, I would say to the Seattle office, "Yes they are here; how did you know?' And he [U.S. WaMu employee] would say, "Because three guys [here] lost their jobs today.'"
Despite the obvious potential for tensions between the two groups of workers, there was, Sameer says, an underlying sense of respect and co-operation that transcended racial and cultural barriers.
"It's not culture or white or Indian or whatever...they were helping us on each call.... It is difficult for me to understand....the person was helping me in spite of knowing that he might lose his job."
Like many of his colleagues, Sameer was, he says, acutely conscious of the differences in working conditions between the two locations, especially when it came to working hours. Long hours and forced, unpaid overtime are, say Sameer and Kharbanda, a regular feature of working life at Wipro.
Officially, shifts are 9.5 hours including a half-hour break for lunch and two 15-minute breaks. Additionally, an unpaid 15-minute team "huddle" usually precedes and follows every shift. But Sameer says that local managers often "stretch" shifts by up to two hours, with short notice, no overtime pay and no option to refuse.
And due to long commuting and waiting time resulting from the ubiquitous shared taxi system, staff can often spend 13 or 14 hours a day away from home, he says.
It is a similar story with breaks. According to Sameer and Kharbanda, employees were sometimes forced to work for over six hours with no break. They say that although managers did not actually deny staff breaks, employees were constantly pressured into taking "one more call" and that team leaders would not be around to sanction breaks.
It was in late July 2004 when things really came to a head, however. Sameer, Kharbanda, and about ten other colleagues had been e-mailing Wipro's Human Resources department in Bangalore, complaining about heavy-handed management, extended shifts and lack of breaks.
During a site visit in August by the Human Resources department, prompted by the e-mails, Sameer claims he was physically manhandled by local managers, who attempted to force him to resign. He refused, but was fired a few weeks later.
Kharbanda says he had a similar experience in September but cracked under the pressure. He says: "I used to tell my team leader things were wrong. Nothing happened. So there was a time when I said, "Enough is enough. Do what you have to, but I am not taking the next call until and unless all the issues are solved.' They said they would take care of it, and I went back and took my calls.
"And then one fine day, I get the news that I have to go off calls. 'Go home stay for a few days, you are going to be retrained.' They call me back and it is the same sequence [as with Sameer]. They forced me to resign. He [Sameer] was strong enough to say, "No.' I wasn't and signed the papers. It was a case of: "Wipro is big enough to rip your career apart.'"
No one knows how common this kind of experience is within Wipro or the offshore call industry in general. There may be many contented Indian call center workers, not least within Wipro itself. This is likely because each "process" has its own working rules, or agreements, between the client corporation and the outsourcer. Likewise, workers' attitudes often depend on their relationship with their line manager. This seems to not be the case for the WaMu account.
However, as far as Sameer and Kharbanda are concerned, the problems are symptomatic of the lack of control Indian call center workers have over their working environment. Take for instance, phone rage.
Sameer says: "Why do clients want us to be extra polite even when the customer is shouting at me? I should be given the right to say, "Sir, you are shouting at me, and I am not saying anything impolite to you. Can you stop that or should I
disconnect the call?' I want that right! But if I do that the client will tell my manager "You have a rude agent'." And this they say can land them in big trouble.
Both Sameer and Kharbanda clearly see the need for a principled effective trade union as a way of winning workers' rights. Many of the issues, from working hours, breaks, and pay discrepancies, are collective grievances, prompting a collective response.
But very few Indian IT outsourcing companies recognize unions, partly due to client hostility, but also because many young Indian workers see established Indian unions as self-serving and powerless.
Consequently, the Union Network International, UNI, is working to bring Indian call center workers together. Under this initiative, the brainchild of UNI Asia regional secretary Chris Ng, a nucleus of activists are placing weekly advertisements in the call center job sections of the New Delhi press, urging call workers to come forward and discuss their issues.
The idea is to build for a conference later this year to found a New Delhi chapter of UNI's Centre for BPO Professionals, the UNI-led staff association already functioning in Hyderabad and Bangalore. CBPOP aims to counsel, support and represent individual call center workers in the short term and secure negotiating rights with major employers in the long run.
But according to Chris Ng, international support is crucial. Urging unions in the U.K. and U.S. to come on board, he says: "An effective Indian call center workers' union would not just benefit Indian workers; it would also boost the rights of call center workers in the West."
A spokesperson for Wipro said the company's policy was not to discuss the details of individual company agreements and processes. However, he said that Sameer was asked to leave the company for "acting against the integrity" of Wipro. Washington Mutual was not available for comment.
Meanwhile, six months later, Sameer and Kharbanda are both trying to build new lives. Kharbanda is still looking for call center work, though not in the New Delhi area. For Sameer it is different. Because he refused to resign and was fired, he cannot get a reference letter and without that, he says, it is impossible to get a new job. He says: "It is part of the fear. They are using fear to keep people quiet. But it has gone too far now. We have to speak out, or it will never change."
*Rohit Kharbanda is a pseudonym.
For more information on Union Network International (UNI), visit www.union-network.org or contact Chris Ng at uni-asiapacific@union-network.org
Michael Cooke is a freelance reporter based in the U.K., who met with Sameer and Kharbanda in New Delhi, India, and reported for WashTech News. Another article written by Cooke on this subject appeared in the London Guardian, April 2, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/. He may be reached at: Michael.Cooke@unifi.org.uk
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Washington Mutual Faces Criticism from Outsourced Indian Call Center Workers
By Michael CookeSeattle-based Washington Mutual (WaMu) is the largest savings and loan institution in the United States, and is recognized as a leader in customer service and corporate social responsibility, as well as being a very good place to work.
"
Take Action
Take Action! Click the image to contact the CEO of Washington Mutual.
According to its website, WaMu's "strong track record of community support" inspired an ambitious ten-year, $375 billion program aimed mainly at providing home and small business loans to low and middle-income communities.
Other WaMu social responsibility initiatives include a community donation and grants program equivalent to two percent of its pre-tax earnings and a program to improve housing on Native American tribal trust lands.
WaMu also has strong business acumen, which, since its early days in the 1890s, has seen it build up a $300 billion asset base and a 2,500-strong national branch network.
It was with this keen business sense that WaMu, like many of its peers, made an agreement in early 2004 to offshore some of its IT call center work. The idea was that about 35 outsourced staff could help troubleshoot WaMu's IT problems from the New Delhi offices of leading Indian outsourcer Wipro Spectramind.
However, according to former staff working on the contract, WaMu's mission statement to "ensure that every human interaction is caring, courteous and respectful" was not often in evidence in the Wipro's New Delhi offices, particularly to Wipro's employees working on the WaMu account.
Wipro Spectramind makes few bones about forcing staff to take on Western names. According to chief operating officer, Devashish Ghosh, employees working on several processes [contracts] are required to take on Western aliases.
Singling out finance companies as particularly insistent on the practice, Ghosh says: "Here you are working for a customer. The customer prefers that there is a name given which comforts their customer. And if that is the need of the process, the need of the customer...one will have to do it. And these people [staff] are sensitized to it. [They are told they] will have to work under a different name and let's be clear it's the requirement of the customer."
But it is not only names. Wipro Spectramind also often strives for the "Americanization" of U.S. business processes, including intensive linguistic training designed to obliterate all traces of local accent.
Indeed, some experienced call workers have such strong American accents, it is difficult to believe they have never been out of India.
One of them is Rohit Kharbanda*, a former Wipro employee who worked on the 35-strong WaMu Indian team last year.
He says the linguistics training and cultural impact of the job was so strong even now he occasionally finds it difficult to pronounce some words in his native language. This, he says, has caused problems with friends who think he is aping American culture and has left him questioning his own cultural identity.
According to his former Wipro colleague Gagan Sameer, who also worked on the WaMu account, there was constant dialogue between offshore Indian staff and WaMu's U.S. staff even as the jobs were transferred, an indication of how closely decisions on one continent impact the other.
He says, "Every time we got three new people, three people would get fired in the Seattle office. We were always updated. [U.S. colleagues] used to tell us in advance: 'You know you are getting three new guys today.' Initially our reaction was "How do you know?' And the U.S. colleague would say, "You just let me know when these new guys come and I'll
tell you why.' And when the new guys would come, I would say to the Seattle office, "Yes they are here; how did you know?' And he [U.S. WaMu employee] would say, "Because three guys [here] lost their jobs today.'"
Despite the obvious potential for tensions between the two groups of workers, there was, Sameer says, an underlying sense of respect and co-operation that transcended racial and cultural barriers.
"It's not culture or white or Indian or whatever...they were helping us on each call.... It is difficult for me to understand....the person was helping me in spite of knowing that he might lose his job."
Like many of his colleagues, Sameer was, he says, acutely conscious of the differences in working conditions between the two locations, especially when it came to working hours. Long hours and forced, unpaid overtime are, say Sameer and Kharbanda, a regular feature of working life at Wipro.
Officially, shifts are 9.5 hours including a half-hour break for lunch and two 15-minute breaks. Additionally, an unpaid 15-minute team "huddle" usually precedes and follows every shift. But Sameer says that local managers often "stretch" shifts by up to two hours, with short notice, no overtime pay and no option to refuse.
And due to long commuting and waiting time resulting from the ubiquitous shared taxi system, staff can often spend 13 or 14 hours a day away from home, he says.
It is a similar story with breaks. According to Sameer and Kharbanda, employees were sometimes forced to work for over six hours with no break. They say that although managers did not actually deny staff breaks, employees were constantly pressured into taking "one more call" and that team leaders would not be around to sanction breaks.
It was in late July 2004 when things really came to a head, however. Sameer, Kharbanda, and about ten other colleagues had been e-mailing Wipro's Human Resources department in Bangalore, complaining about heavy-handed management, extended shifts and lack of breaks.
During a site visit in August by the Human Resources department, prompted by the e-mails, Sameer claims he was physically manhandled by local managers, who attempted to force him to resign. He refused, but was fired a few weeks later.
Kharbanda says he had a similar experience in September but cracked under the pressure. He says: "I used to tell my team leader things were wrong. Nothing happened. So there was a time when I said, "Enough is enough. Do what you have to, but I am not taking the next call until and unless all the issues are solved.' They said they would take care of it, and I went back and took my calls.
"And then one fine day, I get the news that I have to go off calls. 'Go home stay for a few days, you are going to be retrained.' They call me back and it is the same sequence [as with Sameer]. They forced me to resign. He [Sameer] was strong enough to say, "No.' I wasn't and signed the papers. It was a case of: "Wipro is big enough to rip your career apart.'"
No one knows how common this kind of experience is within Wipro or the offshore call industry in general. There may be many contented Indian call center workers, not least within Wipro itself. This is likely because each "process" has its own working rules, or agreements, between the client corporation and the outsourcer. Likewise, workers' attitudes often depend on their relationship with their line manager. This seems to not be the case for the WaMu account.
However, as far as Sameer and Kharbanda are concerned, the problems are symptomatic of the lack of control Indian call center workers have over their working environment. Take for instance, phone rage.
Sameer says: "Why do clients want us to be extra polite even when the customer is shouting at me? I should be given the right to say, "Sir, you are shouting at me, and I am not saying anything impolite to you. Can you stop that or should I
disconnect the call?' I want that right! But if I do that the client will tell my manager "You have a rude agent'." And this they say can land them in big trouble.
Both Sameer and Kharbanda clearly see the need for a principled effective trade union as a way of winning workers' rights. Many of the issues, from working hours, breaks, and pay discrepancies, are collective grievances, prompting a collective response.
But very few Indian IT outsourcing companies recognize unions, partly due to client hostility, but also because many young Indian workers see established Indian unions as self-serving and powerless.
Consequently, the Union Network International, UNI, is working to bring Indian call center workers together. Under this initiative, the brainchild of UNI Asia regional secretary Chris Ng, a nucleus of activists are placing weekly advertisements in the call center job sections of the New Delhi press, urging call workers to come forward and discuss their issues.
The idea is to build for a conference later this year to found a New Delhi chapter of UNI's Centre for BPO Professionals, the UNI-led staff association already functioning in Hyderabad and Bangalore. CBPOP aims to counsel, support and represent individual call center workers in the short term and secure negotiating rights with major employers in the long run.
But according to Chris Ng, international support is crucial. Urging unions in the U.K. and U.S. to come on board, he says: "An effective Indian call center workers' union would not just benefit Indian workers; it would also boost the rights of call center workers in the West."
A spokesperson for Wipro said the company's policy was not to discuss the details of individual company agreements and processes. However, he said that Sameer was asked to leave the company for "acting against the integrity" of Wipro. Washington Mutual was not available for comment.
Meanwhile, six months later, Sameer and Kharbanda are both trying to build new lives. Kharbanda is still looking for call center work, though not in the New Delhi area. For Sameer it is different. Because he refused to resign and was fired, he cannot get a reference letter and without that, he says, it is impossible to get a new job. He says: "It is part of the fear. They are using fear to keep people quiet. But it has gone too far now. We have to speak out, or it will never change."
*Rohit Kharbanda is a pseudonym.
For more information on Union Network International (UNI), visit www.union-network.org or contact Chris Ng at uni-asiapacific@union-network.org
Michael Cooke is a freelance reporter based in the U.K., who met with Sameer and Kharbanda in New Delhi, India, and reported for WashTech News. Another article written by Cooke on this subject appeared in the London Guardian, April 2, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/. He may be reached at: Michael.Cooke@unifi.org.uk
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Talkback on Article
Nov 7, 2008, 9:34 am
Whatever I read above, is 100% truth about Wipro and especially with this account called "WaMu". I was also a part of this account and worked there was about 18 months. Started with a pilot chat account with about 40 agents, With good performance taking as overflow of resources and decided to move people out. Within an year, result was inverse. Performance went down in numbers to CSAT, AHT, FCR, etc & finally the account moved to Siemens in Manila as client was not able to take much of this!!
Mohammad Imran, New Delhi, India.
Mohammad Imran, New Delhi, India.