Elaine Brunskill
Customer services on the East Coast Mainline are dealt with by National Express call centre workers at Baron House in Newcastle, but not for much longer if East Coast gets its way.
The rail unions RMT and TSSA held a joint lobby outside Baron House to protest against the loss of 200 jobs from the North East. TSSA regional organiser Chris Hargrave explained that the call centre services are to be put out to tender to Intelenet Global Services. He went on to say: “We’ve been told they are doing it to save taxpayers’ money. But 70% of the work to Intelenet will be transferred to Mumbai, the rest going to Plymouth. This is a devastating blow to the North East.”
Craig Johnston, RMT executive member, stated: “It never ceases to amaze me how bad these people are. But for a publicly owned company to sack workers, transferring the work to Mumbai, where they will exploit workers, giving only minimal wages, is capitalism at its worst. This has been a catalogue of failure, a catalogue of betrayal, they should hang their heads in shame!”
