Brutal British Outsourcing: You Get Rice Allowance With Job in the Philippines

Employees at a mobile phone company in England are chuffed about what they consider a brutal outsourcing plan: They have been offered jobs to transfer to the Philippines in a package that includes rice and laundry allowances. "It is a complete joke," one worker who asked not to be named told the Daily Mail of London. "No one in their right mind would want to move to Manila.

British workers who transfer to Manila might find traffic snarls — but they get rice with that. (Getty Images Photo)

The Orange customer service center in Darlington, County Durham, which merged last year with T-Mobile to create Everything Everywhere, confirmed that plans to outsource some work abroad would affect about 40 employees, according to the Daily Mail. The jobs would migrate to the firm's service partner, IBM, 7,000 miles away. Staffers were told that they could move to the new customer service hub 7,000 miles away in the Far East.

Orange, which cut 120 jobs at the Darlington facility last year, also offered the workers other jobs elsewhere in Britain.

A few employees have accepted severance packages, while others have taken other jobs. Still others the plan affects have been placed on "special leave," receiving basic pay while they consider their options.

The Philippines option sticks in the craws of those weighing their future. The angry anonymous worker bristled to the Daily Mail: "When we asked for details of the transfer package, we were handed a sheet of paper with what the IBM employees receive, which is less than £200 [$325 U.S. dollars] a month, with a rice allowance and a laundry allowance. That's not a transfer package, it's a job description for someone who works for IBM in Manila.

"People are really upset about the way the whole process has been handled."

Darlington MP Jenny Chapman told the Daily Mail: "I am lost for words. It is hard to take this Manila move seriously, or consider it as a credible proposition. I really cannot imagine people working in the offices of Darlington Orange considering moving to the Philippines."