UK financial services union Unifi has reacted furiously to claims made by HSBC that staff at the bank's overseas centres make fewer mistakes than employees in the UK.
The union says it is consulting members on strike action over claims by HSBC that the bank's overseas centres were more efficient at processing transactions than those in the UK.
According to Unifi, HSBC has told press that although call centres in the both UK and overseas make the same amount of mistakes - one mistake per 1000 callers - the offshore centres made eight errors per million transactions processed compared to British centres which made 50 errors per million.
Rob O'Neill, Unifi's national secretary, says HSBC is attempting to justify its plans for transferring thousands of jobs with misleading statistics.
Unifi claims that the only errors recorded for the global centres are those that impact on customers and which have to be corrected by staff in the UK.
"Our members will be furious that yet again, their skill, experience and dedication to customer service has been called into question by their Employer", says O'Neill.
The union met with senior reps at HSBC at the weekend to discuss the possibilty of strike action - which could include an overtime ban - following the 3500 job losses announced by the bank earlier this month which include further offshoring plans.
Unifi says HSBC's processing centres are currently running at critically low staffing levels following last October's announcement of the transfer of 4000 jobs overseas. The bank is now relying on staff doing lots of overtime in order to clear the backlog and a work to rule could have a devasting impact on services.