Call centers

John Norem johnnor at mindspring.com
Wed Oct 16 19:00:26 PDT 2002


I agree with the recent posts on call centers. It's truly terrible work-- I've been doing it now for about a month and it's really all I can do to make myself get out of bed in the morning and go to that fucking place... We'll see about tomorrow. The posts below appeared recently on the A-infos list.

A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E

An evalution of three years of inquiry and

intervention in call centers, will be published by mid-September [see the content below]. Right now there is

only a printed version in German, but we hope to have an English one soon. The

German version has 224 pages, some art(zero)work and a CD with the book and

other texts in German and English.

The web-version in English will be on this site soon. If you want to get the

German printed one, you need to transfer some money, etc. For more details look

[here].

If you are outside Germany, send us an email first and we will send you the exact

costs including package and postage:

[kolinko at prol-position.net]

Here the contents of the book:

1 We've got something to tell you

2 Inquiry: understand, intervene

3 Evaluation: three years in call centers

Concrete aims of the inquiry

What we did

How we see that today: interviews, website, leaflets, working

How this was recived by the left

What moved us, what would we do differently today?

4 Call Center: In the whirlpools of circulation

A hell of a service?! What is a call center?

Don't believe the hype! The emergence of call centers

Boom, Boom, Bang! What's creating the crisis?

5 Everyday Working Life

Agents - Where they're from and what they are up to

Hiring - Assessment Center

Skills - Who still hasn't got them

Work steps - Logged in to the machine, and out of your dreams.

Cooperation - From productive to subversive teamwork

Machinery - Never mind the call master

Hierarchy - Here is the teamleader

Being on the telephone - What service?

Workers' behavior - Survival techniques

General perspective - Report out of one of the shitty places

6 Confrontations: the pulse of collective struggles...

Points of conflict: work relations, increased exploitation, controls, rip offs

Lines of struggle: sabotage, petitions, strikes

Forms of organising: (base)unions, solidarity groups, self-organising

Conclusion

7 Proposal: the next steps...

Inquiry

Exchange

www.prol-position.net

8 Appendix

Questionnaires

hotlines-leaflets

Literature and links

Call center-list

Glossary

kolinko | 8/2002

1.1 This report went online today:

fiat-call centre in milano At the beginning everything looks really nice when you enter Fiat's call centre in Milan. Lots of space, multi-coloured cubicle walls and little flags, lots of young people sitting in front of large monitors, wandering around or relaxing and smoking in the corner by the vending machines. They speak all kinds of languages: Italian, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Polish... Something between an internet cafe, a children's day care centre and one of those newsrooms in an American TV soap... For more click here: www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/kolinko/prols/en/en_fiats.htm

1.2 The Fiat-article is part of the book that kolinko wrote. It's called: "hotlines - call centre | inquiry | communism". You can find a web-version under http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/kolinko/lebuk/e_lebuk.htm

Stay tuned!



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