Call centre workers are amongst the most exploited in society. We publish here a letter from such a worker in a call centre for Apple, the giant consumer electronics multinational, who provides a vivid picture of the appalling conditions in this workplace, which are likely to be found in many other similar workplaces. In addition, the author outlines the need for such workers to unionise, organise, and fight back against such conditions, as part of a wider struggle in society against the exploitation of the bosses and the capitalist system.
Call centre workers are amongst the most exploited in society. We publish here a letter from such a worker in a call centre for Apple, the giant consumer electronics multinational, who provides a vivid picture of the appalling conditions in this workplace, which are likely to be found in many other similar workplaces. In addition, the author outlines the need for such workers to unionise, organise, and fight back against such conditions, as part of a wider struggle in society against the exploitation of the bosses and the capitalist system.
People generally have mixed feelings about Apple as a company. Whether they love or hate iPods, iPads and iPhones; whether they prefer OS X or the rival operating systems provided by Microsoft or other companies; and whether or not they see past all of these things to look at the conditions under which those products are produced by highly exploited workers slaving away on just enough to survive (and sometimes not even that): people generally do have strong feelings one way or the other.
I myself have never really cared all that much for debates on technology, but I do feel sheer hatred and anger whenever I think of the barbaric conditions which those workers have had to endure so that consumers in the West can enjoy such a high level of equipment. Other than that I’ve never really put much thought into Apple, least of all to think what it would be like to work for them. The past few months have definitely changed that.
Over these last months I’ve been accused time and again by friends, half-jokingly, that I’ve “gone over to the dark side”, since I started working for that corrupt multinational powerhouse that is Apple. Well, to be honest I don’t really work for them at all as I am officially working for another company who are subcontracted to provide call centre staff for Apple. For the first three months I didn’t even work at that company but was actually on a temporary contract with an agency so you’ll appreciate why, under these circumstances, I’ve never really bought into the idea that I, as a Marxist, have “sold out” on my principles. Nonetheless, my time at the company has given me ample opportunity, whilst waiting for calls to come through, to dwell on a few things and to experience how deceptively tiring such work can be.
Now whilst I would never denigrate the struggle of my Chinese brothers and sisters – who work in town-sized factories assembling Apple products – by equating the experiences I’ve had to theirs (I have no idea what it must be like to work at these factories of Foxconn, the company hired by Apple to do the assembling of their products), I do have experience of what Apple is able to offer its “more privileged” employees in the West and thought you might find this report of interest.
Confessions of a call centre worker
After a short four week course of training, which included information on Apple’s products and services and on how the company worked and what was expected of us, and which was not terribly taxing in itself, we were thrown onto the phones full time. The training also included time where we were sat with tenured members of staff to listen into phone calls so that we could begin to get a feel for what the job would be like and for the first four weeks we were working on a set shift rota, Monday through Friday from 9am-5.30pm. This opportunity to talk with tenured workers at the company did give us an insight into what we could expect once we went on the call floor, but nonetheless the transition was far from easy.
When we passed the training we were put onto the general rota with all of the other staff to work 42.5hrs per week, spread out over five shifts that could take place anywhere throughout the times the lines were open. Now in reality what this meant was your shift “pattern” was anything but that – a pattern – with your work hours spread out sporadically and with only having single days off at a time (two days off in a row is nothing short of a rare miracle), giving you barely enough time to fully recover from what is actually quite a draining role.
After an eight and a half hour shift, and with up to a three hour round trip for some workers to get to and from work, is it any wonder that people barely have the energy to do anything at all when they get home; this is more so the case for those workers with families and other responsibilities to take care of as well. With only one day off at a time, with hardly the time necessary to recover, the concept of the weekend itself ceases to lose meaning. It is incredibly difficult to coordinate this schedule with friends and family, who each have their own pressures and time constraints, to ensure we get enough time to spend with one another making working for the company an incredibly isolating experience. Not only do we get alienated from the work process itself, without any benefits accruing to us if the company is doing better and making more money, but we are even cut off from the chance to enjoy the fruits of our own labour and that of our fellow workers. You’re unable to have the time, energy or money to enjoy the wealth that is produced within society; rather than working to live, work itself becomes life.
The stress and strain of this lifestyle naturally has its effect on our health, and with a continuing lowering of our standard of living, in spite of the profitability of the company, is it any wonder that when you get us on the end of the phone we might not be the perfect little automatons that the company wants us to be? It would be hard to find a worker who deliberately wants to do a bad job. Most take pride, or at least would like to take pride, in their work but when a worker is tired, disaffected and low on morale, and in some case out and out depressed, the ability to take pride in their work is extremely hampered.
This is also the case at Apple: me and I’m sure all of my co-workers genuinely like to see our work rewarded with happy customers, but with the pressures we’re put under this reward can become all too scarce. One of the common discussions held over the lunch table in the canteen is to bemoan the insensitivity of some of the customers we get on the phones who do not realise the pressure we’re under and the fact that we genuinely want to provide a good service for them. Thus neither the customers nor call centre workers benefit from this exploitation: call centre workers end up tired, depressed, and poorly paid; customers end up without the service they deserve having forked out hundreds for the latest Apple product. The only people who benefit are the bosses and the owners of Apple.
A worker’s performance is measured on various stats, from the calls that are taken, the processes and procedures which Apple expects all workers to follow on each and every call, as well as the number of sales that each worker makes through the month, all of which gets measured against the performance of other members of the team as well as against the other teams in the department as a whole. This is meant to increase “healthy competition” between employees, but in practice the effect of this pitting of workers against each other sets them against each other, as well as against those they are meant to support, as they are made to see their fellow workers as rivals and competitors. This unhealthy atmosphere – of divide and rule by the bosses – increases the pressure and strain that we all feel, leading to a culture of blame. If a team does badly or does not meet all of its targets then there is no collective attempt to help people who are not currently able to perform, but rather recriminations mount as the team as a whole is punished and individuals themselves feel under attack and ostracised allowing the bosses to deflect blame from themselves.
This war of attrition quite naturally leads to a high turnaround of staff, as rarely do workers in this environment see working for the company long term an appetising prospect. It also gives ample opportunity for managers and team leaders to get rid of staff under the least little pretext. This intimidation of the workforce finds it most extreme expression in the firing of those individual workers who “ask too many questions” or stand up for themselves and others “too much”.
All of these tactics by the management are a way of isolating and atomising workers, and such methods are common across industry as a whole under capitalism. By breaking up workers and setting them against one another, the bosses are trying to prevent workers from organising to fight back against the real enemy: them – the bosses and the capitalists!
Temporary to permanent: exploitation by a different route
When I was transferred from agency staff to direct employment, in spite of doing the exact same job, I instantly had no choice but to accept a pay cut, something which would actually be illegal if not for the fact that I technically started a new contract with a new company. At my review meeting, I was sat down and told by HR, “You’re working well and we want to keep you on. This is the wage we are offering you, take it or leave it!”, and as the company does not recognise any union (yet) the concept of pay negotiations is somewhat anathema to them. For the time being I acquiesced to a relatively small cut in my living standards, in comparison to the huge cut that Jobseekers Allowance would lead to, as so many people have had to do any number of times in the past.
We’ve all had similar experiences, when we’ve felt powerless and unable to do anything, isolated and alone, but far from getting demoralised and feeling hopeless I felt anger and frustration. If this experience has done anything to me it has stiffened my resolve not to back down and accept those impositions from management making my life, and the lives of those I work with, more and more difficult; impositions which actually make it increasingly impossible to offer customers a good experience when they are in contact with us and make us less inclined to do the job to the best of our ability. Without any real interest in how the company does, how could we – call centre workers, warehouse staff or factory workers – truly care about the quality of the products we produce or the services we provide? When further success for the company simply means more money in the pockets of that tiny minority of shareholders who own the company, why would we care about how well we do our jobs?
As an individual, I am not in a position to put any demands to management. What we need is to organise so that we can fight together, side by side. The more we’re able to fight on a collective basis and combat the isolation that is imposed on us by the job, the more we will be able to defend ourselves against further attacks.
What would we fight for?
Some would argue that getting a few members of staff to join a trade union in and of itself will not resolve the difficulties of the mass of workers within the office, and this would be true in the first instance. But by organising a core of staff, who are conscious of the need to unionise, organise, and fight, we can gradually recruit and prepare others, and provide a rallying point and a lead in the future for when events radicalise other workers.
It is clear that such events are on the horizon; events that will shake the consciousness of everyone in society, forcing the most oppressed, the most exploited, and the most atomised layers of workers to begin to organise and take action. This is one of the chief characteristics of a revolutionary period: the entering of the masses onto the political scene; the organisation of the unorganised workers; the qualitative leap forward of consciousness, as the oppressed – for the first time – take their lives into their own hands and seek to change their material conditions.
What should the demands of such workers be? What programme should be put forward? First of all, we need an end to temporary agency employment; every worker who is currently working for the company should be taken on directly, without any loss of pay (NB: currently the agency workers are on a higher rate of pay, yet they have no protection at all from the company if they wish to get rid of them; in addition, workers on direct contracts all have individual pay rates).
Secondly, the wages of all workers should be raised jointly so that we are all earning a living wage. There must be a rationalisation of the rota system, with more workers hired, in order to share out work – without loss of pay – thus reducing the hours of the working week, increasing leisure time, and providing a healthier work-life balance.
Finally, we need collective bargaining rights, so that we have a genuine voice in negotiations over pay and conditions, giving the union control over the health, safety, and conditions in the workplace, and ensuring that pay rises annually in line with inflation. These are just a few of the immediate demands that spring to mind; however, the whole process of unionising and organising would also begin a process of discussion in which workers could collectively formulate a fully developed programme of their own.
Such demands will not be won easily, but must be fought for; and it is in the process of this struggle that further workers will become active and organised. By offering a fighting lead, the most advanced and organised workers can help to recruit others to the labour movement. In addition, the struggle for such demands within my workplace will not be won in isolation, but as part of a wider class struggle in society against the capitalist class, which will bring together all the unorganised layers of workers as they seek to change not just their individual workplaces, but society as a whole.
This is a fight worth having and I myself will not shirk from that responsibility. The time will come when not just I, but many more of the workers around me understand the need to organise and stand side by side to defend each other. In fact, from some recent indications, this time may be short at hand, and I will do all in my power, with the help of other class conscious workers, to help them organise in the workplace, link up with the entire labour movement, fight for the socialist transformation of society.
For the socialist transformation of society!
Apple is a company that shows both the positive and negative sides of capitalist development. On the one hand you have the sheer size and scope of such an enterprise which, due to economies of scale, is able to create some of the highest quality technological products, (although admittedly not without their faults) available on the consumer market. On the other, you’ve got the barbaric conditions which prevail in the factories which produce those products leading to suicide and despair. Even in the most advanced capitalist countries of the west, the conditions workers are faced with in the call centres, shipping warehouses and in Apple retail stores are trying at the best of times and we have limited resources in defending ourselves at the present stage.
If the workers of Apple, in all countries, took the company into their own hands and started running it under democratic workers control – producing for the needs of society, rather than the profits of a tiny minority, then technology could be produced in a much safer way and to a higher quality, more could be produced for less, and the living standards of the workers could be vastly improved. With a lightening of the workload on each particular member of staff you could then take on more workers, thus lowering unemployment in the wider community.
If you take this example and apply it to all of the big industries and multinational companies that span the world, then society itself could be planned in such a way as to eliminate the world crisis. Not on the basis of capitalism, but on the basis of a rationally planned economy and on the division of labour of the working classes of all countries – this is the solution to society’s problems: by planning production on a world scale in a democratic way you could vastly increase the amount of wealth in society, lower poverty, illiteracy and inequality and create a truly fair and free society.
I have not written this for any sympathy for myself or my fellow workers or to make anyone feel that we’re special, far from it. I am one of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young people around the world who drag themselves to work, day in and day out, to offices which are lined with banks of desks, to wire myself into a server and sit at the end of the phone to resolve all manner of problems and to take all manner of abuse; to take abuse from customers, as well as from our managers, when we are not able to jump through each and every hoop placed in front of us.
Call centre workers are some of the most exploited within the west due to the high level of casualisation of the role and the outright attempts by management at union busting and the victimisation of individuals who do argue for improvements. But the time will come when my fellow workers and I band together to fight for a better share of the wealth that is created through our joint efforts; for a rise in wages, and better terms and conditions, to allow us to have at least a decent standard of living. Ultimately the only way to solve this problem would be the hiring of more staff, which would allow for work to be shared out and our working week to be shortened. Such a solution, however, would come into contradiction with the need – under capitalism – for companies, such as Apple, to make ever increasing profits. The task, therefore, is for a radical transformation in society in general, replacing the system production for profit with a system of production for need.
