If it works, fix it

Hindustan Times ^ | October 25, 2005 | Indrajit Hazra

[CarrotAndStick]

It’s an industry that’s getting the cash registers ringing and presenting India as the back office headquarters of the world. It’s also the industry that mostly employs jumpity post-adolescents who, a decade ago, would have either been part of the odd market survey team trying to check how much consumption interest there is in a to-be-launched lipstick, or would have been whiling away their time until they got married or a job, whichever came hurtling first. So it’s not Reliance or Infosys, but it’s a job that we apparently do well and, believe it or not, it’s work that a lot of people are keen to do.

But instead of a happy picture of a young, well-paid, urban workforce taking calls and talking in accents that warm the cockles of the heart of credit card-holders in Leeds, the labour ministry presents a picture that is straight from Dickensian London — or, to put it more ‘locally’, from a Sivakashi fireworks factory. The study conducted by the V.V. Giri National Institute of Labour, an autonomous body working under the Labour Ministry, forgot to point out that there may be chairs used by call centre agents that aren’t ergonomically perfect. It has also overlooked the fact that a few of these chairs may have wheels that do not function properly, thereby denying the worker his or her right to slide and swivel freely.

But the academic-mandarins have exposed the fact that the working conditions for the ‘peripheral’ employees of call centres in this country resemble Roman slave ships and 19th century prisons. “I guess these labour ministry bureaucrats have no idea of what it meant to be a galley slave. Even 20th century prisons are often awful. BPO workers are among the fortunate ones to get these jobs: imagine the ministry trying to paint this industry in garish colours.” That’s Jagdish Bhagwati’s opinion. But what would the Columbia Professor of Economics know that Babu P. Remesh, author of the study, already doesn’t know?

The study points out a clear-cut division between the ‘core’ employees, who form a more permanent fixture in the BPO industry, and the ‘peripheral’ one — you know, the young things, talking into their headsets, who come and go, never having the time and energy after the gruelling hours to talk about Michelangelo. The study has never heard of such a dualistic division in any other sector.

As for the shame of having surveillance cameras monitoring your every move in a call centre, would such a thing ever have been allowed to exist in a place where youngsters with a wonderful pension scheme and closed-door surroundings have the exhilirating job of rolling tendu leaves?

It is curious, considering that the call centre ‘peripherals’ have been working in such gruelling and thankless conditions for some time now, that no one has sparked off a Spartacus-like mutiny. No one, barring the odd, concerned outsiders, of course: Indian journalists going undercover and writing in liberal British newspapers about the ‘bright satanic offices’ and ‘modern sweetshops’; sociologists pondering over the fact that a whole generation of call centrewallahs will, because of the nature and the timing of their jobs, be unable to attend Umberto Eco lectures in town; and Babu P. Remesh, Associate Fellow of the

V. V. Giri National Labour Institute, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, whose research study ‘Employment and Employment Relations in IT Enabled Services and Teleworking’ is the eye-opener. (Not to forget the British journalist Andrew Bibby, from whose 2000 discussion paper ‘Organising Financial Call Centres, Discussion Paper’, the study borrowed the colourful descriptions of “19th century prisons” and “Roman slave ships”.)

Alas, the ‘peripherals’ are not drugged and dragged before being ‘shackled’ in front of their work stations. They know the job description they applied for — the same way an official working at the mint knows that he’ll be bodysearched every day when he leaves the building. Being a call centre agent is not working at IBM and hoping for a vice-president position. They are also aware that, unlike, say, government bank employees, performance-oriented appraisals apply to them.

But hold on, say the deeply concerned gents. Why is there such a high rate of employees quitting on the job then? Surely, it’s because of the tortured conditions of call centres? The ‘peripherals’ leave the job because it’s crap. The same reason why many people — including journalists — want to leave their jobs. But the labour ministry knows the shameful truth. Pity the study didn’t mention the real problem plaguing the BPO industry: the terrible drivers who ply the call centre ‘peripherals’ in the vans to and fro their horrible offices.

[CarrotAndStick]

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