A tale of two call centres

Call centres: the ultimate 21st century dead end job. When you work in one, it can feel like the only people with less meaningful jobs are the people you report to.

Every minute you’re paid to be in their fluorescent hell hole is measured and categorised on a binary: “available” (to take calls) or “exception” (bathroom break). Typically, 3 percent of your day is allowed to be expended on the time it takes to get back from tea breaks and deal with bodily functions.

While this sweat shop regimentation will be familiar to anyone who has ever worked in an Australian call centre, the benefits of union organisation may not be. Union membership in the call centre industry is lower even than the national membership rate of 17 percent. Many workers, particularly those doing work that has been outsourced by other companies, have never worked under a union collective agreement and rely only on the national employment standards (NES) for protection.

The NES is what the government calls a “safety net”. It is a bare minimum and provides our employing class with the right to pay people just enough to feed and clothe themselves and turn up to work.

My first call centre job was for a company called Stellar, a recipient of outsourced work. Its business model is to take on work, outsourced by the public and private sector; work that would previously have been performed by workers covered by enterprise agreements, and do that work at fire sale prices. You bet they paid minimum wages, and fought to keep it that way. At Stellar, the quickest way to be shown the door was to talk to the wrong person about joining the union.

In Stellar’s employ, I worked on a contract for a well known electricity and gas retailer. We performed the function of the sales team, without getting commissions; we dealt with distraught customers in financial hardship without being paid as their credit team; we handled serious customer complaints without being paid as managers. Because we lacked a strong enough union, management were able to fudge job demarcations. Those who could not manage the jobs of multiple other departments as well as their own, within an average call time of 497 seconds, would be publicly berated.

The tea room gossip was always about how terrible the pay was, how much of a mess the company was to work for and which supervisors were most hated. But the union could never get enough of a foothold, and when it came time for a vote on terms and conditions, the company-proposed NES-based agreement was approved. So bad was the deal that wages were frozen for three of its four years.

Since leaving Stellar, I’ve got a job at a call centre with a union-negotiated agreement. It’s another electricity and gas company, but because the site has a union history, the pay is more than 30 percent higher, with a minimum annual pay rise of 3 percent. Job demarcations are strictly enforced, reducing the stress associated with taking hundreds of calls each week.

Importantly, workers have an understanding that union organisation matters. We have won the right to have a union noticeboard, for delegates to attend to industrial matters at work and to talk to new workers about the union.

If you only do yourself one favour as an entry level worker, join your union and help others see the reason to do so as well.