SHERIDAN TO JOIN HUMAN CHAIN AROUND ALEXANDER BAIN HOUSE

12.45 -1.15 P.M. - MONDAY 14 APRIL
ALEXANDER BAIN HOUSE, YORK STREET BROOMIELAW, GLASGOW

Tommy Sheridan will join CWU workers staging a lunchtime protest around BT's flagship call centre in Glasgow. Several hundred workers are expected to take part in a human chain, devised to symbolise their opposition to UK jobs being out-sourced to India.

Their issue is not with the Indian workers, but with a British company which chooses to relocate to an area where labour is cheap, the average worker earning less than a fifth of his/her British counterpart.

Already Directory Enquiries and Reminder Calling (to replace reminder billing) have been relocated to call centres in Bangalore and New Delhi. Jobs relating to Broadband services, BT's biggest potential new market, are currently being created in India and the CWU feels that these jobs could and should have been created in the UK. The switch to the subcontinent could cost up to 12,000 UK jobs, a move which will particularly devastate Glasgow, where over 10,000 people are employed in the call centre industry.

Tommy Sheridan says,

"This isn't just about one small group of workers - the drive for ever lower costs at the expense of human beings will affect all service industry employees. Be assured that where BT ventures, other companies will follow and the slow drip of jobs to ever cheaper labour pools will turn into a flood.

I'm proud to take part in this protest and to see ordinary working men and women standing up for themselves, shoulder to shoulder. The sooner we return telecommunications to public ownership, the better for both customers and employees."
[ends]
Notes to editors:
Tommy Sheridan: 07887 795 075
Billy Muir (CWU): 07850 77 36 36