leaflet on working hours

text in german    testo in italiano
Here are the introduction and the main article of the first leaflet (October 2000).
You can find the reports on specific call centers under:Hier Einleitung und Artikel aus dem ersten Flugblatt (Oktober 2000).
Dazu die Beiträge zu einzelnen Call Centern:
citibank/duisburg
quelle/essen
medion/muelheim
deutsche bank 24/duisburg
client logic(ex-dts)/duisburg

In Ruhrgebiet, Glasgow, Paris, Milano or Berlin... call centers have been opened up for years in many cities and regions. Already hundreds of thousands work in call centers in the banking and insurance industry, in technical support-hotlines, in sales and marketing, in order services...
As workers in call centers we call up people (outbound) or answer their calls (inbound) using integrated telephone- and computer technology. Many of us work in shifts. The work is divided in short, precisely defined work steps. And we are controlled by teamleaders.
Many of us work in call centers, because in some regions it is the only chance to get a job easily. Sometimes these jobs are better paid than those in factories, in cleaning or shops. But while bosses and politicians present us call centers in their PR-brochures as a "modern form of work", in fact, they have made us the proletariat of their "service and information society"!
Call Centers were and are an attack on the refusal of many office workers to accept a deterioration of their conditions (in banks, insurances, the post office, telecom and other offices). For many workers call centers stand for longer working hours, forced shift work, constant control and intensification of work. Working in call centers means sometimes stress, sometimes boredom, the obligation to be friendly and customer fobbing, not enough money and too many hours on the job.
Nevertheless, it depends on us, the workers, under which conditions we will work in the next few years. Our behaviour and our struggles determine, whether the bosses can speed up the work rhythm and force us to work overtime - or whether we can win the initiative and show them the way!
Some conditions are in our favour: the newspapers are full of job offers and the bosses start compaigns and make announcements in football stadiums, because they cannot find enough people who want to do their work or who stay "call center agents" for long enough. In such times we can push things through because they cannot afford to just sack people. And even if: We can quickly find another job. Furthermore, often we work under similar or equal conditions together with hundreds of workers in one department. Many workers have also worked in other call centers and bring along experiences and contacts. So we are not isolated at the work place, but can organize with others against the lousy working conditions.
We do not have to put up with anything!
For collective actions against overtime and work stress!

Good times, bad times...
Against the flexible extension of working hours in call centers

End of shift. The phones do not stop ringing... and you can already see how the teamleader is coming over: "Can you stay another hour?!" Shit! You had planned to go out for the cinema with your friend but that won't happen as usual. And on Saturday you won't have time either because of the compulsory extra shift. Have heard this before?

The interest of the call center-bosses is clear: they want to make big money with in- and outbound-calls. Therefore, on one hand they try to make us work longer: more hours a day, more days a week and as flexible as possible and "on call". On the other hand they want us to take as many calls an hour as possible and to avoid everything that could lower productivity.
In this leaflet we write against the bosses' attempts to extend our working day.

Time is money for some...

The phone wires and our ears heat up, but despite the fact that in a short time span we phone in the equivalent of our wage for our boss we cannot go home afterwards. The working day lasts longer, but the rest of the time we work for the balancesheet of the company. The bosses want to extend this unpaid labour by forcing workers to work more hours, that is more than 40 hours a week, or if doing part-time, more than the previously agreed working hours.
In many cases the previous working hours in branches and offices were extended with the introduction of call centers (for instance in the banking sector). Often this happened with the outsourcing of parts of companies and the usage of temporary agencies. Furthermore, we see constant overtime and extra shifts, for instance in technical hotlines (Medion/Duisburg...) and order services (Client Logic/Duisburg...), during marketing campaigns or seasonal business. And in many call centers workers have to work longer hours because the training times do not get paid, or like at Quelle /Essen, where workers are asked to come earlier so they can read their new instructions (on the intranet)! Some call centers even send workers home without payment when computers break down or there are only few calls (Client Logic/Duisburg). In case, the workers depend on the lost wage they have to make up for the missed hours another day!
The bosses also extend the total working hours: the governments of many german regions (Bundeslaender) were keen to allow work on Sundays, which has been introduced in many call centers. The same with work on public holidays. Sunday- and public holiday-work take place for instance in direct-banks (Citibank and Deutsche Bank 24/both in Duisburg...). Night work anyway.
Many call center bosses do not pay any supplements for work on Sundays or overtime. Workers still do overtime although past experiences show that overtime hours and supplements for work on Sundays result in higher wages only for a short period. When we have agreed to work longer hours on a regular basis, the wages quickly drop to a level just high enough for living and going to work.
This attack, the attempt to extend the working hours, does not only happen in call centers, but also in other offices, in shops and factories. Call centers are part of this society in which profit - and not the needs of the workers - decide over work, working methods and products. Therefore, the usage of more productive technologies (like automation- and information-technologies) does not lead to more convenient or less work. On the contrary: some workers in factories and offices must do extra shifts and overtime. Thanks to flexible working hours, others are - between times of unemployment - even able to survive on three part-time jobs.

... and stress between working rhythm and working schedule for us!

But why do the bosses try to extend the working day and the total working hours? Why do they try to tie us up to the telephones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? They go on about "customer service". But important is: As long as the machines, that is computers, telephone systems etc., are used night and day, they do get back they investments quicker and can make profits! And why overtime and extra shifts? We all know this: in inbound you sometimes have many calls, sometimes few. In outbound the amount of calls varies less, but instead there are sometimes many contractor's orders, sometimes not. The management tries to even out the fluctuation of calls and orders by trying to let the agents work overtime and extra shifts in the times of a high call volume, and in less busy times they want them to stay home or just work the regular shifts.
So this stands behind it: We shall work flexible and always turn up for work when the bosses blow the whistle so they do not have to hire more people. That would cost money and lower their profits!
The conflict about the length of the working day is a crucial struggle between workers and bosses. There were, for instance, struggles on the 8-hour-day and the 40-hour-week.
But it was the immediate pressure oft the workers - rather than the public union campaigns (as the one on the 35 hour week in the 80s) that lead to the reduction of working hours.
At the moment we are under pressure and find rather defensive answers to the extension of working hours and their "flexibilisation": going on sick pay against weekend shifts or the extended toilet break when the job is stressful. And sometimes we take care of the phones of others, so those can finally take a break and talk to other workers. For sure, these unofficial ways of reducing working hours is okay. But this is a weak base as long as we accept twice the amount of calls when there are not enough people on the phone in our team.
If we want to have more time for the nice things in life in the long run, and sacrifice less hours for work, we have to push that through together! We do not need to wait till the last person in the team has understood that we should not take the shit anymore. It is enough if we start standing up with some other workers in our department!

No extra shifts!
Every hour overtime is 60 minutes too much work!
Stop shift work altogether!


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