CUTS to a night shift at Sky's Dunfermline call centre will leave hundreds of workers out of pocket.

Sky told staff earlier this week that the night shift, running from 10pm until 6am, is to be stopped and the workers given the chance to apply for other positions at the Dunfermline centre.

One Sky worker, who did not wish to be named, claimed that if the night shift was cut, as Sky is proposing, and workers were given other positions during the day shifts, they would each lose more than �7000 a year.

The worker told the Press, "Sky were the ones who put an extra allowance on the pay for the night shift so that after midnight we'd get double time.

"Some of the girls have been working that shift for more than 16 years. They've offered us jobs on a day shift but we'd lose that money.

"They said they're shutting the nightline but they're not, they're just moving it to another place where it's cheaper.

"During the night there are queues of 15-20 minutes for people trying to get through. Most have tried to phone during the day and been stuck for longer.

"It also means that they get to speak to a UK call centre because a lot of people aren't happy speaking to an outsource in India.

"A few of the workers here are willing to try for the other jobs but most are talking about walking out.

"Many of them have families and mortgages. When they broke the news to them, three of the operators had to go home because they were that upset about the situation.

"It's come totally out of the blue. I spoke to the boss and he said it had been in the planning for 18 months, but we'd heard nothing about it.

"We've got this 45-day consultation period coming up. We've elected shift representatives and they have to go and argue the point about why these shifts should be kept open but the general feeling is that if they've decided then that's it.

"Sky pay millions to big stars like Beckham and Bruce Willis, can they not use that money to keep their staff on?"

A spokesperson for BSkyB commented, "Like many other customer-facing businesses, we have seen a change in how and when our customers want to contact us.

"In order to better meet customer needs we are proposing to shut our customer contact centre between the hours of midnight and 6am.

"As a result we propose redeploying those who currently work this at this time to other more popular call times. We are consulting with all affected staff on the proposals."