Raising standards in call center jobs Challenges and solutions

1. Raising standards in call center jobsChallenges and solutions Virginia Doellgast Professor of Comparative Employment Relations London School of Economics and Political Science v.l.doellgast@lse.ac.uk

2. Research projects Global Call Center Project (Rose Batt, David Holman, Ursula Holtgrewe, coordinators) • Surveys in 20 countries: over 2500 centers surveyed, with 475,000 employees http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globalcallcenter/ Union impact on job quality in the USA and Germany • Telecommunications call centers and their subcontractors • Disintegrating Democracy at Work (Cornell University Press) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100916220 Restructuring of call center and technician jobs in 10 incumbent telecommunications firms • USA, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland http://www.academia.edu/4498267/Alternative_routes_to_good_jobs_in_the_service_economy_Employment_restructuring_and_human_resource_management_in_incumbent_telecommunications_firms

3. Outline • Background on the global call center industry • What do good call center jobs look like? (Where do we want to raise standards to?) • Where are standards (currently) better? • Challenges to raising standards – and how they can be overcome

4. The global call center industry Global Call Center Project survey findings • 83% call centers served a national (not international) market • 2/3 in-house – 1/3 subcontractor • 78% inbound • Collective bargaining coverage highest in Europe • in many countries >50% of centers • much lower union presence in subcontractors

7. Raising standards: to where? Good jobs in call centershave: • Good pay • Job security • Limits on monitoring (intensity, how it’s used) • Employee control over pace of work and working time • ‘Fair and reasonable’ targets – ‘income security’ Example: Deutsche Telekom in Germany (circa 2005)

8. Where do we find good call center jobs? • Segment of the industry • In-house better than outsourced better than offshored • High value customers and markets • Laws, regulations, and collective bargaining make a difference • Jobs better in ‘social Europe’ – best in Germany and Sweden • In these countries: call centerswith collective bargaining had better jobs than those without • Importance of ‘encompassing’ laws and collective bargaining

9. Closing off the low-road: challenges How employers escape laws and collective bargaining: • Temporary agency work • Outsourcing • Subsidiaries Examples: • Escaping equal pay rules for temporary agency workers in the UK • Outsourcing and subsidiary creation at Deutsche Telekom

10. Estimated % of call center employees “externalized”

11. Closing off the low-road: strategies Union responses to employer escape: • Agreements to bring work back into unionized companies: reduce costs and improve flexibility/productivity in-house • Extend collective bargaining: organize new industry segments and job types • Improve legal regulations, close loop-holes: minimum wages, equal pay rules, transfer of undertakings, freelancers, etc.

12. Germany UK Denmark USA France Italy Czech Republic Sweden Austria India & Maghreb Hourly pay for call center employees: in USD ($) based on purchasing power parity

13. Challenge: raise the bottom • Research shows: Best outcomes for workers where high collective bargaining coverage and strong bargaining rights • But: Employers use a range of strategies to escape from minimum standards in laws and union agreements • Creates growing pressure to reduce pay & conditions in line with the external “market” • Unions face different political “opportunity structures” across countries: • Different starting points and power resources • Building vs. holding onto encompassing rules/protections • Increased importance of global solidarity in a globalized industry: reduce pressures for worker-to-worker competition