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August 2, 2010 -- The Finance Sector Union (FSU) has called for all political parties to adopt policies that protect Australian jobs and skills from the practice of offshoring.

According to the union, Tony Abbott's Friday's comments on Adelaide radio that losing your job in a call centre to lower cost labour sourced overseas is "sometimes unfortunate" but that "there will be other jobs you can go to" revealed Mr Abbott's lack of concern about Australian workers.

The practice of replacing Australian workers in favour of low cost workers in countries like India and the Philippines by banks and finance companies has seen some 5,500 finance jobs lost in Australia in recent years.

The FSU has called for a range of policy measure that politicians should adopt to address off-shoring in the finance and services sector including investigating the full range of impacts off-shoring has on the community, better data on the subject of off-shoring, legislation requiring customers are told where the staff member they are speaking to is physically located, and legislation that ensures customers have given their permission before their personal data is sent for processing offshore. The union also sees the need for genuine industry planning focused on building Australian skills and growing Australian jobs.

FSU Policy Director, Rod Masson, said Mr Abbott's 'hands-off and hopeful" approach demonstrated a lazy and disinterested policy position, adding that there had not been much more detail forthcoming from the Government or the Greens addressing the issue.

"Our members, working for hugely profitable Australian companies, are under very real pressures in terms of immediate threats to their jobs and to meet service demands when positions are sent offshore. And their customers dislike the practice too.

"Off-shoring benefits no one but the company's bottom line. It affects bank workers, insurance workers, customers and communities and the Australian economy suffers as a whole."

In the FSU's recent Better Banking survey 90 per cent of the public and 93 per cent of workers wanted a commitment from Government and banks to stop off-shoring. Meanwhile, 87 per cent of respondents believe Government should require banks to let Australians know when their personal financial data is being sent overseas.

"It is very clear that both the public and bank workers don't like off-shoring and they don't want to see it continuing.

"It's time all sides of politics recognized the importance of this issue amongst the electorate and started adopting real policy that will deliver for our community," said Mr Masson.

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, Asia Pacific correspondent

Source: http://au.ibtimes.com

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