Call centre exploitation

by Peter Mac

Australian call centre employees are among our most ruthlessly exploited 
workers. Last week unions representing them applied to the Industrial 
Relations Commission for a universal award for their work.

The case, mounted by representatives of the Communications and Public 
Sector Union, , the Australian Services Union and the National Union of 
Workers illustrates just what happens when employers are given a virtually 
free rein over pay, hours of work and other conditions.

As ACTU organiser Belinda Tkalcevic recently explained: "The majority of 
call centre workers in in-house call centres for well-established companies 
are on community standard wages and conditions. We don't see why contract 
call centres should pay any different. One of the main areas of dispute is 
hours of work. (Contract call centre employers) want to have a much broader 
span of ordinary hours. We want it limited to 7am to 7pm."

The call centre struggle doesn't involve only Australian employees. One 
Indian "guest worker" currently employed by Telstra revealed that he was 
receiving some A$820 per month, compared to A$5000 currently paid to 
Telstra's Australian employees in the same Melbourne centre.

Telstra, which has cut some 50,000 jobs since being part-privatised, and 
looks like making a nice $3.66 billion profit this year, has now admitted 
to the existence of some 100 "guest worker" employees within its Australian 
workforce.

Significantly, the union list of award demands for call centre work 
involves basic entitlements, some of them won in other industries more than 
a hundred years ago: a competency-based classification structure, a cap on 
ordinary working hours, overtime penalty rates, and higher duty payments. 
The unions also want parental leave, a late night safe travel allowance, 
and a 25 percent casual loading.

The huge profits and rapid growth of call centres, a result of the rabid 
exploitation of their employees, may soon change. Not content with 
transferring their in-house answering services to ruthless local contract 
call firms, Australian companies are now beginning to take their business 
offshore.

A favourite area for this purpose is India, where call centre staff are 
trained in the vernacular language of the various incoming calls, which 
come from countries as far-flung as Britain, the US and Canada, as well as 
Australia.

The "offshore option" is being blatantly used by employer representatives 
who argue for reducing the wages of Australian employees to a "third world" 
level. Stephen Smith, national industrial relations director of the 
employers' body, the Australian Industry Group, said last week that call 
centre employers were not opposed to the introduction of an award, provided 
that it was sufficiently "flexible" to compete with wages and conditions 
applicable in, say, India.

"Our aim is to ensure that the minimum conditions in the industry are 
appropriate to maintain a lively and healthy call centre industry in 
Australia, instead of it being relocated offshore", he added malevolently.

The situation points to the urgent necessity for greater international co-
operation between union organisations to secure better rights for workers 
in all countries. However, in Australia the immediate struggle is for an 
award for all call contract centre workers through the case before the 
Industrial Relations Commission.

Ms Tkalcevic commented: "We should be able to get an award of realistic 
wages and conditions up within a matter of months. Once this award is 
achieved we hope to extend coverage to all contract call centres in 
Australia, ultimately affecting tens of thousands of workers."