The Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for
South Wales West, Peter Black, has written to HSBC to seek assurances about the
future of their call centre in Swansea.
He has written to the Chief Executive of HSBC
following a meeting with banking union UNIFI. At that meeting doubts were
raised about the future of the Swansea call centre following the recent loss of
130 jobs in the adjoining contact centre.
Although HSBC have already announced the loss of 4,000 jobs in the UK,
only 1,000 of these have been publicly identified. Another 3,000 job losses have yet to be accounted for. Mr. Black was also told that workers at the
Swansea call centre have only been given assurances about their jobs until the
end of 2004. This has caused a huge
amount of uncertainty at the centre.
"HSBC’s plan to outsource contact centre jobs
to Asia has already cost 130 jobs in Swansea,” said Mr. Black. “It was a huge blow to the local economy.
However, any threat of further job cuts is totally unacceptable and we need to
get clarity from the bank as to what plans they have for their Swansea operation.”
“It seems that the full consequences of these job
losses are not yet in the public domain. Unions are concerned that when plans
for the remaining 3,000 job losses are announced that a processing centre
somewhere in the UK may close. That is
why we cannot prolong uncertainty in this matter and workers need to know where
they stand. I am looking to HSBC to provide assurances about their Swansea
operation and to guarantee that it will remain open for the forseeable future.”
END