In New Delhi, a BPO [call center] employee’s “e-union” has come about with the intention of taking the worker’s fight out of the streets by bringing it directly to share-holders. The group, only a month old, has chosen to remain anonymous for the time being because of negative stigmas that are attached to unions in the country.

According to this article, the BPO union plans to talk directly to shareholders in hopes their conversations will directly affect stock prices. Further, they claim they will go straight to clients to let them know about the repression of employees in the companies. The anonymous union head explains, ‘‘Clients should know the negative PR against the vendor could spill over to their own brand. Also, it could affect them if we ever suspend work with the vendor.”

The group is not presently actively looking for members, but they will soon start an email registration collection where they can collect a database of supporters. Further, while they have taken their fight offline, they have not written off entirely the possibility of taking the fight to old tactics if they see it necessary against “very stubborn offenders.”

A while back, MSH talked with Morton Bahr of the CWA about how laborers in the U.S. were organizing online. He said that be believed that while there was some organization happening with “the new work force,” that there’s no substitute for mouth-to-ear, face-to-face organization. Stories like this one in New Delhi display a continuing contention where activists and organizers continue to struggle to find a middle ground while using new and old school techniques. In this case, it appears that the old school (unions) have a perceivably negative face and the new school (the Internet) is, to this point, a relatively un-utilized resource. The e-union might find great success organizing the BPO’s nearly one-million-strong workforce

While the jury remains out on whether or not—as Mr. Bahr had said earlier—Internet-organizing will be a proper substitute for “mouth-to-ear, face-to-face organization,” the organizer-to-shareholder attitude held by these organizers is reminiscent of corporate campaigning, which we discussed with Ray Rogers a few months back.

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-Filed in Ideas, News