Solidarity Reg.

Although, as the article makes clear, the unions are not willing to be flexible

Axa's plans to open a call centre business in Morocco, employing 1,500 staff and saving the French insurer €75m ($95m) annually, has triggered an angry reaction from trades unions.

Yan Balat, spokesman for Axa France, said the insurer had decided to open a call centre in Morocco after negotiations failed with unions two years ago over proposals for French staff to work later in the evenings and at weekends. Staff at Axa France work a 34-hour week.

"We know the demands of our clients are increasingly important," said Mr Balat. "They want to be able to call us with a question after they finish work in the evening or at the weekend. This is impossible unless we renegotiate the working hours with our unions." He said that unions were presented this month with its recruitment plan, including the Moroccan opening, as part of its strategic objectives, dubbed "Ambition 2012".

No weekend, evening work.

Clients can go fuck themselves of course.

And Moroccan development?

Well, the "alternmondialistes" will talk a good game in grand generalities about Solidarity and the like, but in the end the same people fall into the side of pure protectionism.

Unions have promised to fight the plans. Maurice Zylberberg, representative of the CFDT union, told AFP yesterday that it was "a move of global ideology"by management, pickingon "the ugly little Gallic duck".

Axa's French unions said they "refuse to allow Axa to seize on the godsend of baby-boomers reaching retirement age to off-shore and outsource some of its activities to make more profits that will not benefit its staff".

Global ideology?

How about global opportunity?

And of course making more profits, staying in business and extending new services to clients indeed benefit the staff in the end.

A growing number of French groups, including banks and telecommunications operators, have started moving their data-processing and customer relations activities to North Africa, particularly Morocco, to benefit from cheaper French-speaking staff and more flexible working hours.

But France is still several years behind the US and UK, where a flood of companies have opened big operations in English-speaking countries, such as India and Bangladesh. This is partly because the off-shoring of activities is politically frowned on in France and unions are fiercely opposed.

Axa expects 4,500 of its 16,000 staff in France to retire by 2012. It plans to replace some of them by hiring 1,500 new administrative staff in France and 1,500 customer relations staff in Morocco. The insurer also expects to increase its commercial staff by 600.

Axa already has some operations in Morocco, including call centres for its Axa Assistance helpline unit and its Direct Assurance telephone sales business, which both employ about 80 staff.

The French insurer also has three call centres in India, employing about 2,300 staff, to serve customers in its UK, US, Australian and Japanese operations.

Mr Balat said: "There are lots of other companies planning similar moves (in North Africa) but we are one of the first to announce it." Axa aimed to boost its revenues in France from about €19bn last year to €32bn by 2012 and its operating profits from €700m to €1.6bn.

All three Maghrebine countries are building call centre units like mad; indeed call centres seem like a way of giving employment with some meaning and real private sector value-add to the hordes of lit. and other degree holders who are otherwise utterly not prepared for the job market.