GWENT call centre staff will take to the streets tomorrow to protest at a new deal that they say will benefit workers in India at the expense of British jobs.

Many of the 500 workers at British Telecom's centre in Factory Road, Newport, will use their lunch break to protest outside the offices.

It is part of a national day of protest with workers demonstrating at all 34 BT call centres throughout the UK.

The demonstration is being organised by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), who are also considering balloting members on strike action on BT's move.

BT are creating 2,200 jobs in new call centres in India. They say that no jobs in the UK will be lost as a result because the move is an expansion.

Newport's CWU organiser Helen Burgess said: "We simply believe that UK firms have an obligation to maintain jobs in the UK and that's for sound economic reasons as well as moral ones. After all, if companies took this to its logical conclusion, high levels of unemployment would lead to a general impoverishment of the UK that would inevitably dent the same companies' domestic profits. BT did not properly consult the unions over this move and we are considering industrial action."

A spokesman for BT said: "We have reaffirmed our commitment to maintaining UK centres and delivering a network of cutting edge sites which are the best in Europe. "We are opening two new sites in London that will employ approximately 2,200 people by March 2004.

"None of BT's permanent employees in the UK will lose their jobs as the result of the new centres opening. BT has also made the commitment that no agency people who work for BT directories in the UK will have their contracts terminated. The 700 directories jobs in India will be achieved through natural wastage among agency workers in the UK."