UK trade union Unite accuses Indian IT firms of visa abuse news
22 September 2008

British trade union Unite has questioned the granting of visas to Indian IT employees, saying that companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Mahindra-BT, Mastek, Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services could be undercutting British salaries.

The most recent Home Office figures, obtained by Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act revealed, of the 22,000 IT employees entering the UK last year, 11,644 have been recruited by leading Indian IT companies and according to a British trade union, Unite, on lower wages thereby undercutting the salary earned by locals.

Tata Consusltancy Services, Wipro, Mahindra-BT, Mastek, Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services were named as the companies who have collectively brought in 11,644 IT workers to the UK with 4,000 in 2006 of Tata Consusltancy Services being the highest,  it said.

The Sunday Telegraph said these companies were granted work permits to bring 47,000 foreign nationals into the UK over a period of seven years with a steady increase every year since 2000 and doubling since 2003.

Unite, although disputing these figures admits it is probable that these workers possess the necessary skills for the specific jobs in question but doling out work permits "should not be at the cost of resident workers".

Under the British work permit rules if local recruitment cannot be done because of paucity of skills for the specific job than companies have to advertise for that job in Europe before an employer can transfer any person from India.

Unite is concerned about Indian companies undercutting the salaries paid to British IT professionals by recruiting overseas foreign workers and paying them lower wages than what a British employee would earn in the same rank.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, the average salary earned by a local IT professional was £35,000 a year in 2006, whereas overseas professionals were paid under £30,000 a year. These figures were for employees on short-term and long-term work permits.

An experienced software programmer in India receives £6,600 a year whereas his counterpart receives £33,000 in the UK according to a research report from PayScale, a pay monitoring firm.

Unite criticised the "intra company transfers" which allow employees based abroad to be transferred to a UK office which is widely used by Indian companies thereby abusing the UK work permit system.

According to chief executive Ann Swain of the Association for Technology Staffing Companies, "Wages are being undercut by companies bringing over Indian workers, who are put up in hostels and paid poorly."

According to the Sunday Telegraph report quoting a senior UK "onshore offshoring" person, "The real reason why companies are turning to people from the Indian subcontinent is that UK graduates can't compete with the quality of India's technology graduates. The level of intelligence and attention to detail is lacking in UK staff coming through the education system."

Unite has also alleged that some Indian companies operating call centres in the UK have brought their staff from India to be trained here before shutting it down and starting the same operation in India with the Indian staff trained in Britain.

By the end of the year Britain's Home Office will bring in the Australian-style points-based system for foreign workers who will have to show they have the necessary qualifications and experience in a profession before they enter Britain.

National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), the trade body representing the interests of Indian IT and BPO industries, had welcomed the new point-based immigration system and has advised its members to register for the new system.

October 1 2008 has been set as the deadline by the UK Home for applying for immigration under the new system, which will ''go live'' on November 24, 2008.

Nasscom said that any person wanting to go to or remain in the UK on an intra-company transfer or obtain a work permit would need to show that he/she had enough points to qualify under the new point-based system.

''The objective of the U.K. Government is to boost Britain's economy and ensure that the U.K. is easy to visit legally,'' added Nasscom.


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UK trade union Unite accuses Indian IT firms of visa abuse