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BY THE YEAR 2000 hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide will be employed by telephone call centres. They are becoming the new version of the assembly line and trade unions need to pay attention. Raphael, a 24-year-old qualified translator, spends his day on the telephone. At 7 a.m. he dons his headphones, sits in front of a microphone and gets ready to reply to inquiries from the clients of the express courier firm that hired him three months ago. Most of the callers have no idea that he is speaking from Dublin. Clients in Paris, Brussels, Bonn or Amsterdam dial the 'green' number that automatically connects them to the 'call centre' based in one of the poorest districts of the Irish capital. Thanks to his computer, Raphael can quickly arrange for a parcel to be collected in Geneva, track down a stray package in Bangkok, or inform his customer of the prices charged by a carrier in New York. He spends one to two minutes on each client. In eight hours he will have dealt with about 200 telephone calls.
He is not alone. According to a report* prepared by the International Federation of Commercial, Professional and Technical Employees (FIET) more than half the 6,000 call centres in Europe are based in Great Britain which has 38% of the world market. Employing between 160,000 and 200,000 people now, this figure is likely to rise to 1/4 m. by the year 2000. If you telephone a call centre, it will probably be a woman that answers. In most centres, 3/4 of telephonists are women and many are under 30. Based in industrialised regions where unemployment is particularly high, the call centres are a godsend for thousands of workers back on the job market. The employers' main incentives are the low wages, economies of scale and the simplicity of installation. The Dublin-based call centres of the express courier giants such as Federal Express and UPS provide a service for clients in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and France. The 'German' section of UPS in Dublin employs no less than 150 telephone operators for much lower salaries than those payed across the Rhine.
The new communications production line poses many challenges for the trade unions. Trade unions need to develop a strategy that aims both at protecting existing jobs where they are under threat, and at organising workers in the new call centres. The sometimes deplorable working conditions in the call centres should also encourage employees to turn to the unions. The first signs of occupational health problems are beginning to emerge. The FIET's British affiliate in the banking sector, BIFU, has drawn attention to the increased risk of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) to which telephone operators are exposed because of their constant use of the computer. The union has also detected another problem: more and more telephone operators in the call centres are losing their voices. However some employers play on the rapid turnover of staff, linked to the stress of the job and the lack of career prospects to discourage unionisation. Yet unions seem determined to rise to the challenge and seize this rare opportunity to organise a new sector.
*'Teleworking and trade union strategy', FIET, Geneva, 1997
This article is based on the report cited and other features by Luc Demaret, Pat Quinn and Samuel Grumiau for FIET and ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions)
In Austria, 22.000 employees in the chemicals industry have gained rises of 3.44% in minimum pay rates and general increases in the 2.5% range with the glass, food and ceramics industries recording general increases slightly below 2%. Inflation in Austria is currently at 0.9%.
BLUE COLLAR workers in the manufacturing sector in Denmark have won increases of between 2% and 2.75% during negotiations this year; consumer price inflation is forecast at 1.9% for 1998.
INSEE, the French statistical office has just published a survey which shows that German employees receive 27% more pay than those in France, but this lead is reduced to 8% when income tax is considered. Pay differentials in the latter country depend most on location (Paris v the rest) and in Germany are linked to the size and importance of the company.
Average gross weekly earnings for full time employees in the UK were £384 in April 1998, according to the Office of National Statistics. This represents an annual rise of 4.6%.
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