Marian Brain bondly voven betwee remember. Almost 4000 members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) working in 3/ Customer service Centres stood up to British Telecom and shouted loud and clear, that they want an end to bullying and intimidation on a daily basis.
The strike was over one issue, and that is BT failure to resource its customer centres adequately. BT was not prepared to employ permanent BT people but wanted to continue to use Agency workers.
As part of the drive to increase their mas. sive profits they also wanted to increase the exploitation of its workforce in 150/151 by setting unrealistic and unachievable targets on call handling and selling of goods. They have also increasing use the poor attenders and poor performance procedures as a way of frightening people.
in the talks that are going on toucan a workorce below tae ment, they say that these workers are paid too much, and that they need to be paid the market rate for the job. many of these workers a multiskilled is just not coulde Sweatshop Working in a Call Centre and Customer Service Centre is like working in a sweat shop, you are tied to the machine just like actory workers an In fact you are linked to two pieces of equipment, that monitor everything you do. You are plugged into a telephone system that knows how many calls you have taken and now long, you were waltng between It also monitors how many breaks you have and what for, there is a code for your scheduled VDU break, a different code for going to the toilet etc. Then you are also The November strike at the BT call centres was a potentially major step forward to tac organs sation of call centre workers in Call Centres growing source of employment in Britain and in much of the devel oped capitalist world. Estimates numbers working as to tne in Inc about 500,000 or 2 per cent of the workforce: five years ago they The development of call centres enabled by advances which facilitate cheap national international call rates, by and high productivautomated call distribution systems.