Reports are doing the rounds today about how Orange is transferring 40 call centre jobs from Darlington in County Durham to Manila in the Philippines.

Apparently if staff transfer to Manila they will get the same pay and benefits as local workers. This is less than £200 per month with rice and laundry allowances thrown in.

Here is an article about it.

Orange said it had to discuss the transfer option with staff but that the offers were not sent to them officially.

“We recently proposed some operational changes to our nightshift customer services for the Orange brand. As part of a business process decision, overnight consumer calls will in future be handled by an existing outsource partner in Manila during their daytime hours. In accordance with UK employment law, we’ve completed a collective consultation and are now holding discussions on an individual basis. All 40 of our consumer nightshift team based in Darlington will be offered alternative roles in the UK, or redundancy terms,” said Orange.

Regarding the transferring to Manila issue it siaid: “This was an HR error, for which we apologise. We are in contact with the 40 employees involved and will be making it clear that we’re not proactively asking or expecting people to move to Manila. The information given out was not done officially and we apologise to those involved. In the case of work transferring locations, the individuals do have the right to request moving with that work, and we have a duty of care to discuss the option.”