Report: Call Center Workers in India, U.S. Face Same Problems

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/10/22/report-call-center-workers-in-india-us-face-same-problems/

Report: Call Center Workers in India, U.S. Face Same Problems

by James Parks, Oct 22, 2006

It doesn’t matter whether the small cubicle where call center telecom workers answer the phone is in India or in the United States, the workers all face the same problems: stressful work conditions, overly demanding bosses and little right to raise their voices in protest.

A new report, released jointly by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), several Indian worker organizations and Jobs with Justice (JwJ), provides a detailed look at the impact of outsourcing call center jobs on workers in India and the United States, who are linked through the growing globalization of this work.

The report: Bi-National Perspective on Offshore Outsourcing: a Collaboration Between Indian and U.S. Labor, clearly shows telecom workers in both countries benefit from joining a union, says CWA Vice President Annie Hill.

At a time of conflicting and often hostile public opinion in the two countries over the outsourcing of jobs, this report demonstrates the link between workers in both countries and explores joint efforts to stop global companies from pitting workers against each other.

The best solution is for workers in both countries to organize. That’s the best way to rush issues forward and provide workers with a voice.

In both countries, call center employers are taking the low road, Hill says. Instead of letting workers do their jobs, employers figuratively “chain” them to their cubicles in highly structured environments where phone calls come in constantly and workers must use a script. They are timed to see how fast they deal with a customer’s problem. There’s even new technology that allows managers to spy on the worker’s computer screen to see what files they call up during a call, Hill says.

There also is a big gap in pay and training, Hill says, with union workers in the United States getting 10–15 weeks of training while the Indian workers—all of whom are nonunion—and nonunion workers in the United States get only four or five weeks.

Even though the wages in India are poor compared with those in the United States, call center workers in India still fall into the top 25 percent in income in their country, reflecting the differences in the two nations’ economies. But even so, there is a growing desire to form unions, says Ashim Roy, general secretary of India’s New Trade Union Initiative. This growing sector is important for stable employment in India, he says, and as the industry matures and stress levels increase, unions will play an important role in better regulating and bringing about workplace democracy.

[davidwparker]

1. there's another problem in India. That is, the Indian call center staff

get tired of being the "persona" that they try to impersonate to fools US callers into thinking they are dealing with someone in the US.