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The Call to Action

By Colin Lynch - National Co-ordinator, ASU call centre campaign

The Australian Services Union is leading the push into the call centre industry. But winning these new workplaces is a major challenge.

Much has been written in recent times on the changing nature of work in the 21st century. The call centre industry has been at the centre of descriptions of this new workplace. This new emerging form of workplace is also producing its specific industrial and occupational heath and safety issues and problems. The fundamental question of how work is organised, managerial power and control remains central to the problems call centre workers are facing.

The ASU is the fourth largest union in Australia, with branches in all Australian states and territories. In 1999 the ASU developed a number of organising policies. One of which is to embark on a well-resourced campaign to organise call centers. Significant employment is being generated in the call center industry with great potential for union membership growth. We can expect over 300 000 jobs to be created in call centers over the next decade. Indeed this industry has already produced membership growth for the ASU.

The ASU is not the only union that can enroll call center workers as the industry is very diverse. We are part of a steering committee set up under the auspices of the ACTU which involves several other unions. The Organising Unit is assisting this committee and has also undertaken some good research which is being used by all unions to develop strategies for organising this industry.

OHS Issues for Call Centre workers

Call centre workers have identified important industrial and OH&S problems can you elaborate on these. A survey the ASU has recently conducted has found that 88 percent of call center workers experience stress because of their work. A further 33 % have taken time of work as a result of this stress. Of these workers 83% had taken up to ten days leave because of stress with 5% taking upwards of 25 days per year and this is in an industry where the average workers spends only 16 months in any one job!. Other findings of the study causing our members great concern are;

� 49.7 % of workers with five or more years service had suffered an injury

� 25.2 % of workers employed less than 1 year had suffered injury

� The study makes an important link between those workers taking time of work due to stress and workplace injury. For example, 51 % who had time off because of stress had also suffered injury while only 28.1 % who had not taken time off work because of stress had incurred a work place injury.

� Management policies were also a very important factor in the incidence and severity of stress and injury. Of those workers that believed that they had good encouragement and communication from managers only 25.8 % had suffered an injury as opposed to 45.6 % of workers who said a feature of their workplace was poor communication with managers

� Most frequent, injuries were headaches 26.5 %; eyesight problems 18.2 %; ear problems 11% per cent

� Call monitoring may also be implicated in workplace injury with 39 % of workers who were monitored suffered an injury as opposed to 21.9% who's work was not monitored.

The research found causes of stress stem from a lack of communication and encouragement from management, and a need for more training and support. Management studies have suggested that the individual psychology of workers is where the problems and solutions lay. However our research and I might add international academic studies suggest how work is organised and managed are the causes of stress in call centers. Research undertaken by the Organising unit focused on non members and they also found that workers strongly supported increased and more effective communication suggest this would improve their quality of working life.

The Brave New World?

There has been a lot of talk about that call centers representing the new and better workplace of the twenty first century. I am skeptical about this claim. Specifically I object to the gross generalizations made by some management futurists in their claims for a new post industrial workplace, where these new workplaces feature employers and employees enjoying greater choice in how their work is organized, high pay and superior conditions.

I am not saying that these 'new' jobs do not exist, rather my point is that they are, as they always have been, in the minority. We certainly have members, for example in IT industries, whose skills are highly sought after by employers, and some of these are in what you could classify as call centers. These workers are in a better bargaining position because of their skills and as such are able to enjoy some level of autonomy in decision making. My argument here is simply that these groups of workers are not representative of most workers. The question of call centre monitoring perhaps best illustrates the link between stress and the way workplaces are managed.

Call monitoring of call center workers is almost universal. It involves employers listening or observing workers through the use of sophisticated software programs as they do their work. A recent industry study undertaken for employers claimed to have dispelled the 'myth' that call monitoring places workers under unnecessary stress. This study which is one of the Hallis group of studies, which found that most employees appreciated the management feedback they received through call monitoring.

However our own survey which interviewed almost twice as many workers found that call monitoring was associated with high levels of stress, poor morale, workplace injury and high labour turnover. This is where I suggest that significant similarity exists with the so called Taylorist industries of the 20th century. Specialist software allows managers to measure the work call center workers undertake, by the call, second and indeed keystroke. In many cases this involves listening to callers and workers responses without their knowledge. This high level of monitoring enables managers to exert significant power over workers. For example, in many workplaces when workers take too long to answer a call, they are "counseled" by managers. Counseling is just a another word for being disciplined for not working fast enough and hard enough. It is also taken into account when managers determine rates of pay and bonuses for workers. This type of management control shows a strong similarity with the time and motion studies strongly resisted by many workers throughout the 20th century.

That is not to say that call centers are the sweat shops of the 21st century ". The problem with such claims is similar to the claims with some management studies we discussed earlier, that is they are at best generalisations. The fact is that in many ways call centers are a new form of work organisation and as such specific problems with the way work is organised is now becoming apparent. Having said this the underlying logic of employers has remained consistent. Bosses are interested in getting the most out of workers for the least pay. Of course they use the words such as efficiency, flexibility and increased productivity to disguise this aim. While this will never change, different employers have different strategies to achieve these basic aims. For example, there are a number of employers who see themselves as long term players in this industry. We can expect some of these at least to be concerned about these problems because they see high labour turnover, a high incidence of stress and workplace injury preventing them from making profits and achieving a competitive advantage. On the other hand other employers will follow a strategy of 'wringing employees dry' and then when they leave simply replace them. Our concern on this point is backed up by industry studies which show annual labour turnover to be between 18 % and 36 %. Employers even have a special name for the high turnover they call it "the churn rate".

It remains to be seen how the industry and individual employers approach these problems. As with any industry you will find good and bad employers, our campaign-- will I think-- make these employers more visible. It would be naive in the extreme to uncritically accept the rhetoric of employers in this industry that, "their employees are their most important asset". As such Peter, I suspect that an answer to your question will become evident as our campaign unfolds because it will ultimately mean that individual employers are called to account on these claims.

The ASU's Campaign Strategy

The ASU has branches in each state and territory, which have dedicated resources specifically to this campaign. Our first job has been to "map" the industry. As a result of this mapping we are now in a position to identify key players in this industry, existing membership levels and workplace locations. All ASU branches have identified target sites for our campaign. In some cases this will involve working with members to increase density in existing workplaces and in others undertaking campaigns in Greenfield sites.

As part of this mapping exercise we have had detailed discussions and research involving members and non union members in this industry. The Organising Unit of the ACTU has undertaken some very good research that is assisting several unions in the identification of some generic workplace issues and organising strategies. Internally we have also undertaken extensive case studies and reviews of the international and Australian literature, and as indicated earlier we now have the findings of our own industry survey.

However all this information really only gives us a starting point to make public the generic workplaces issues at the industry level and make contact with potential members in Green-field sites. As we begin the longer process of organising these workplaces our priority is to encourage workers themselves to identify and campaign around their own specific issues. In all states this process is underway with some very promising results to date. This early phase of the strategy is also focusing on opening up lines of communication with responsible employers where appropriate.

The second phase of the campaign will see a concerted effort by our members and organisers at the workplace level. The development of workplace committees, collective agreements, and other forms of membership participation will be a central plank of this second phase. In this way we will build sustainable membership by working with our members to increase their bargaining power and their influence over the way work is organised and managed at their workplace. In conjunction with the organising campaign we are pursing at various levels, a number of ways to overcome the problems caused by the lack of industrial regulation which underpin many problems for workers in this industry.

I would like to emphasise that our underlying philosophy is to build the campaign from the ground. It is different to other campaigns we have undertaken in this sense, that we believe that without such an approach we will not achieve our goals of increasing membership and assisting workers to improve their quality of life. For the ASU it is the interconnected goals of increasing union membership and improving the quality of working life that underlie this whole campaign strategy. What will ultimately determine the way we go about this, is the views and issues that are important to workers in this industry. It is the issues important to workers that will shape and prioritise the directions this campaign will take, and these only become visible when we engage with workers at the workplace.

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