More Outsourcing at Vodafone
We learned today that yet another operations team at Vodafone is to be outsourced. Interconnect Provisioning has been put up for tender and the smart money will be on Ericsson to win the contract.
It seems like the operation of Vodafone’s mobile network is been carved up like the turkey at Christmas, with the biggest losers been those at the coalface who have dedicated many years of their working lives to Vodafone.
The companies who win outsourced contracts do so because they but in the lowest tender. They do this by firstly cutting corners and delivering a lower quality service and secondly by giving displaced workers less benefits. Anyone unfortunate enough to find that Vodafone has sold on their contract of employment to a 3rd party will that their new employer soon wants to cut back on things like final salary pensions and share options.
There is some protection afforded to outsourced employees, TUPE on the face of it transfers the majority of your T & C’s but in reality the law is highly complex and as soon as you sign a new contract ceases to apply.
This is why we need to make sure that we are all members of Connect. As an individual member Connect you get all the appropriate legal advice from Connects team of employment law experts completely free of charge.
1 comment:
You view is of course biased to support membership. I've worked for a small/medium sized telecoms software house in the days of GSM2. They won work by carrying less people, and being more efficient. Employees were treated much better than in some large companies with everyone getting executive healthcare plans and profit related bonuses.
Large companies can't always produce all they need especially if it's outside their core competence. For example if a company who already has a provisioning system bids for the work they are able to deliver it cheaper than Vodafone writing it from scratch.
Surely price is not the only consideration in awarding a tender. If that were the case tender processes would be much simpler than they are.
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