Reuters Risks Writers' Wrath

Over in London, the hits (to job security) keep coming. According to an AP wire report released yesterday, news industry stalwart Reuters (Nasdaq: RTRSY  ) is proceeding at flank speed with its mammoth "Fast Forward" job outsourcing program, announcing a new round of layoffs that is twice the size of last month's.

A few months ago, fellow Fool Dave Marino-Nachison looked at the company's plan to move 60 editorial jobs to India. In October, Reuters elaborated on its plans, clarifying that as piecemeal as the job moves may appear, with announcements of a couple dozen moves coming in dribs and drabs every month, they all add up to a pretty major shift in the company's business model. In all, the company's Bangalore, India, workforce should reach 400 employees by the end of this year; that expansion will accelerate in coming years until it maxes out at about 1,500 employees by 2006. By then India will be home to 50% of Reuters' data-processing jobs and roughly 10% of its worldwide headcount.

Yesterday, Reuters provided an update on the progress of its plans, in the form of an announcement that 100 editorial jobs will soon be moving offshore (up from 50 cuts announced last month). Interestingly, while the company spun its announcement as aimed at increasing its coverage of news events in "China and Switzerland" and mentioned hiring new reporters and photographers around the world, the only place mentioned as inheriting the editorial jobs being cut was -- you guessed it -- Bangalore.

While the outsourcing moves, and the nature of the jobs being replaced, seem to make economic sense to this Fool (read why here), if you move a little closer to the epicenter of the shift, the reaction gets a bit testier. According to the AP, Britain's National Union of Journalists is complaining pretty loudly about Reuters' plans. What's more, the union recently held a straw poll among its Reuters members and found that 84% of those polled were willing to strike in protest of the company's moves. What manner of protest they're planning, though -- whether we're talking something like a "byline strike" such as those TheWashington Post (NYSE: WPO  ) suffers through from time to time, or something more on the lines of the full-blown strikes seen at Albertsons (NYSE: ABS  ) , Safeway (NYSE: SWY  ) , and Kroger (NYSE: KR  ) earlier this year -- remains to be seen.

Fearless of the flames, Foolish writers dauntlessly carry on the offshoring/outsourcing debate in the following articles:

• GE to Sell "Outhouse"
• Weighing Outsourcing's Impact
• Energy Crisis Spurs Outsourcing
• Outsourcing to the Heartland
• Thoughts on Offshoring and Outsourcing

Fool contributor Rich Smith owns no shares in any company mentioned in this article.