Engaged Tones

Strikes in French and Spanish Call Centres Winter 2004/2005

The following is a report summarising the nation-wide strike in the Spanish telemarketing sector, December 2004, and the conflict at the French company Ceritex in January 2005. Both struggles were quite exceptional in terms of the number of people involved and the call centres affected. Another parallel is the strong position of ‘base unions’ which are rather marginal in other sectors.

Strike in Spain, December 2004
In the Spanish telemarketing sector about 50,000 people are employed, of which 82 percent have only fixed-term contracts and/or are employed by temp agencies. The telemarketing sector comprises tele services such as emergency calls for the ambulance or information on train time-tables. Often the work contracts are limited to 15 days, only after the contract runs out will the worker know if she/he will get a new one. About 76 percent work part-time, most of them a six-day week. The average wage in the sector is said to be 750 Euros before taxes, compared to the general average of 1,430 Euros. The stats don’t tell us which working hours this average wage is based on. A phone worker who is directly employed by Telefonica gets 2,740 Euros, three times as much as their colleague in the outsourced call centre. According to an survey by the CGT union, most workers mentioned the following main problems: the fact that shifts are only announced one week in advance, the fact that the management increasingly demands multi-tasking (web-cam, fax, different phone projects etc.) and the rising numbers of redundancies due to outsourcing. In recent years the big companies, such as Telefonica, RENFE (national railways) etc., have outsourced their telephone jobs to service companies, sometimes re-located the service abroad, mainly to Morocco and Argentina.

Strike in the Sector
It’s about the establishment of a general collective contract within the telemarketing sector, which would not mean all call centre workers. If the main company belongs to the metal sector, the telephone agents are also officially metal workers. There were some strikes for the collective contract already in June 2004, but they ended without an agreement. In December 2004 the main unions CC.OO, the UGT and the (ex-) anarcho-syndicalist union CGT called for another series of one-day-walk-outs. The following are some of the official demands: higher wages, announcement of the shift schedule one month in advance, at least two days off per week, three weekends off per month, wage equality with similar jobs, no multi-tasking, reduction of temp-contracts to 30 percent of total staff, redundancy pay in case of dismissals due to outsourcing.
First Day of Strike, 7 December 2004: About 50,000 workers take part in the first day of the strike, at least according to union sources. The unions estimate the strike participation at 75 to 87 percent. The bosses talk about 27 percent and are not willing to negotiate. The unions complain that some of the outsourced companies told their workers that there was a legal obligation to provide a minimum service. This is false and the behaviour of the respective management illegal. In Andalusia some of the emergency calls are outsourced to private companies. In Seville the telemarketing sector contains, amongst others, the phone services of the following companies: national railways, regional electricity company, directory inquiries of Telefonica. Apart from Seville, Malaga is another capital city of call centres. The service company Catsa is one of the biggest in town, employing 2,000 call centre agents. On average a single work-place has to answer 450 calls per working day. Clients are mobile phone companies and other bigger corporations, for example Fnac.
Second Day of Strike, 23 December 2004: The unions say that 70 percent heeded the strike call. CC.OO and UGT complain that Telefonica and the temp agency Ranstad put pressure on the bosses’ union not to accept the contract, on which the majority of employers had already agreed. This supposedly has resulted in the fact that the strike day ended without an agreement.
Recalled Third Day of Strike, 30 December 2004: During the week before the third day of the strike the CC.OO agrees on a compromise and together with the UGT renounces the strike call. The CGT follows, but calls for two hours of company assemblies on the day concerned, in order to discuss and decide about the future of the conflict. The CGT reproaches the CC.OO with putting militant workers in a legal catch-22 situation by renouncing the official call for strike. They say that in a lot of companies the militants of the CC.OO and UGT distributed a leaflet from the union headquarters, perhaps without having read it thoughtfully, which announced that an agreement had been achieved and that the conflict was over. The leaflet doesn’t say anything about the actual content of the agreement, neither was any information published later on. The CGT claims that the main incentive for this agreement is the exemption of fourteen CC.OO/UGT officials from normal duties for their work in the collective contract commission. The main demand concerning redundancies and outsourcing hasn’t been fulfilled. The agreement also provides a loophole for the bosses to push further flexibilisation of working time: working time is laid down in the collective contract, but exceptions can be negotiated with the collective contract commission.
The CGT acts very rank-and-file orientated, calls for assemblies in order to ‘decide about the direction of the strike’. They also distributed questionnaires on problems, needs and demands of the workers. Of course, in the end they have to behave like any other union, trying to secure stable conditions in their sector: “We still have to change a lot in order to turn telemarketing into a sector of the future”. Some details on the questionnaire action: it went out to about 20,000 workers, but the CGT does not say how many were returned. The twenty questions mainly refer to the demands of the collective contract and the possible strike, they can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and there is little space for comments. Unfortunately the conclusion mixes general stats and stats on the answered questionnaires. They claim that about 90 percent agree on the demands, that 76 percent are ready to strike, that 50 percent would go on an indefinite strike. The strike reports of the CGT don’t say anything about the actual atmosphere, discussions or dynamics in the different companies and their assemblies.
Fourth Day of Strike, 27 January 2005: On the 25th of January, the CC.OO and UGT publish an official statement accusing the employers association of treason. Their agreement, which was signed by them behind closed doors is not only not accepted by the workers (the CGT calls for more strikes), but the bosses also withdraw their signature. The main unions receive a letter from the bosses saying that they want to revise certain points, such as the redundancy payments. The strike called by the CGT alone was followed by 40-45 percent according to CGT estimations, by 1,73 percent if we believe the bosses’ declarations.

Extracts from a leaflet distributed during the strike in Malaga:
“Good evening, you are talking to a precarious worker, how can I help you?”
“We are not what we are told to say we are! We are not Movistar, Telefonica, Vodafone! We are someone else. We have to lie in order to make ends meet, in order to pay the rent or the mortgage of a house that will never be our own. Our life is not our own, but owned by the company which hired us this month. We are polyvalent workers. Today I answer your call, having a qualification in bakery, tomorrow I am the woman from Ecuador who cleans your house, or the student with a law degree, who will serve your beer. We are the contortionists of flexibilisation. We have seen the name of our company disappearing from the front of its building, re-appearing in another town, with new workers who haven’t got their own voice either, just like us. If you call us today, it will be engaged, because we will talk, on strike, and discover our voice. This time we will speak the truth.”

Strikes at Ceritex in France, Winter 2004/2005
There have been strikes against the relocation of call centres at Timing and Wanadoo in late summer 2004. In October 2004 workers at Teleperformance, a sub-contractor of France Telecom and Wanadoo went out. About 70 percent of the employees have temp-contracts which are prolonged each week, or not. Despite this significant number of temp workers, the strike participation was surprisingly high. The base union SUD estimates it at 90 percent. One of the main reasons for the conflict were the long working hours of 44 hours per week. Teleperformance has relocated parts of the service to Tunisia. Apart from Tunisia, Morocco is the other main country for French call centres to be shifted to. Timing relocated their night and weekend shifts to Morocco. It is said to be 40 percent cheaper to open a call centre in Morocco, where the average wage is about 400 Euros, compared to 1,100 in France. There are 60 call centres in Morocco phoning for the French market, employing 7,000 workers. In France 205,000 people graft in call centres. In 2003 there was an increase of 10,000 jobs in French tele-companies of which only 5 percent were created abroad. Last December 300 agents of Wanadoo struck against the consequences of a rashly introduced telephone-internet service: excessive extra stress because of annoyed clients which the management tried to burden the staff with.

The Strike at Ceritex
The following chronology is based on information of the base union SUD. Although the different positions amongst the workers are more or less excluded, it provides an good general overview.
24 January 2005: The strike kicks off at four different locations of the call centre service company Ceritex B2S, the second biggest in France. After three years without any wage increase the base union SUD now demands a 5 percent pay rise. In leaflets distributed amongst the workers the SUD admits that the economic situation of Ceritex is not a booming one, but due to sales of company owned real estate the management has got the money to grant the pay rise. They also admit that the demand for a wage increase of 5 percent won’t cover the real wage loss of the previous three years. The SUD announces that the strike participation ranges according to location between 60 and 85 percent and that mainly management people, people with temp contracts and from temp agencies are scabbing. At a general assembly on 24th of January the workers decide not to start work again on the same day, which was planned, but to continue the strike until the assembly on the following day.
25 January 2005: The call centre in Strasbourg starts working again. In Chalon the assembly decides to carry on striking, but the division between strikers and workers with temp contracts becomes ever more clear. According to SUD sources the management declared on various occasions that the strike would endanger contracts with the clients and that therefore work contracts might not be prolonged. This has allegedly lead to a situation where managers and temp workers together shouted slogans against the strikers. The FO union is accused of having taken part in the denunciation of the strikers as well. In Maison Alfort the staff votes for a strike too, and a delegation is sent to the management. The bosses refuse to talk to the elected delegation but finally agree to receive two officials from the SUD. The management’s response concerning the demands was negative, as was expected.
26 January 2005: The call centre in Chalon is receiving calls again. The remaining strikers hand out leaflets to the temps in order to undermine management propaganda. In Maison Alfort the strike is still on and the management is still spreading rumours, without any strong impact. The strikers try to make the dispute known to the public, e.g. by distributing leaflets in the neighbouring shopping malls. In Le Mans the conflict continues as well. The management calls the bailiff because the picket is allegedly using the reception area to warm themselves up and to use the toilets. Other workers spread the news in shopping streets and on access roads next to the call centre.
27 January 2005: The workers in Maison Alfort decide to stop the strike and to continue the struggle by other means which do not result in loss of wages. Despite, or maybe because of, the bosses’ repressive policy the assembly in Le Mans votes for the continuation of the walk out till next Monday.
28 January 2005: The strike in Le Mans continues, supporters deliver wood and meat for barbecues. Continuous visits by bailiffs do not spoil the good atmosphere.
29 January 2005: The bosses send security guards to the picket-line in Le Mans and the Ceritex chairman blathers in an interview that all strikers can look for new jobs if they are unhappy with their present ones.
31 January 2005: People in Le Mans and Maison Alfort are pissed off by the comments of the companies’ chairman. In Le Mans about half of the staff vote for going back to work. There are supposed to be ‘sudden and surprising strikes’ in the future. A company-wide assembly is meant to be organised in order to decide about the future of the conflict.
During the following week there are various spontaneous walk-outs in Le Mans, Maison Alfort and Strasbourg. The FO officially announces that it doesn’t support the actions. The SUD accuses the FO of negotiating behind the back of the workers about preferential treatment and privileges for the strike-breakers. The national assembly of all Ceritex workers is planned for the 7th of February. Workers who were active in the strike have to put up with severe disciplinary measures at work, e.g. their phone conversations are monitored much more frequently than usual.
7 February 2005: About a hundred workers gather in front of the company’s headquarters in Gennevilliers and demand negotiations. The bosses refuse and call the cops. Three lines of riot cops block the entrance of the building and the workers form chains and try to push the cops out of the way. The management agrees to receive six delegates. Six workers from different locations are elected. The management asks the cops to provide a list of names of the delegates. Two workers on the list are not accepted and the scuffle continues. Finally the delegation is accepted, but the bosses have nothing more to say than that a pay rise is out of the question. Parallel to these actions the workers in Maison Alfort and Le Mans start a spontaneous strike in order to put more pressure on the bosses. In the late afternoon the assembly in Gennevilliers is declared over, people have a long way back home. Some waste bins are emptied in front of the building. A union rep claims that the action in Gennevilliers helped to facilitate the communication between workers from different locations and that the attitude of the bosses only strengthened the combativeness for the disputes which followed.

Official info from the SUD and pictures of call centre workers and riot cops can be found here

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005]