Call centre workers unite! changing forms of organisation and representation in the Portuguese and British Digital Economy

Isabel Roque, null

doi:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.12.2.0079

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Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Volume 12, Issue 2

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Call centre workers unite! changing forms of organisation and representation in the Portuguese and British Digital Economy

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Author(s): Isabel Roque

Publication date (Print): Winter 2018

Journal: Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: call centres, cybertariat, digital labour, trade unions

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Abstract

In the 21st century the introduction of digital technologies has been accompanied by a rise in precarious, cheap and vulnerable work. Call centres represent a part of the service sector that exemplifies many aspects of technological innovation, being one of the fastest developing forms of digitalised work. This article draws on 30 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2014 and 2017 with former and present Portuguese and British call centre workers, trade union delegates, activists and academics, aiming at analysing the engagement between trade unions and social mobilisation, that is, how workers engage in new forms of organisation in Portuguese and British call centres.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): workorgalaboglob

Title: Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 1745641X

ISSN (Electronic): 17456428

Publication date (Print): Winter 2018

Volume: 12

Issue: 2

Pages: 79-98

Article

Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.12.2.0079

DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.12.2.0079

SO-VID: e1939ee7-87b9-475f-8348-19a2734d46df

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

References

Antunes, R. & R. Braga (eds) (2009) Infoproletá rios: degradação real do trabalho virtual , São Paulo: Boitempo.
Bauman, Z. (2002) A sociedade sitiada , Lisboa: Instituto Piaget.
Baumgarten, B. (2013) ‘Geração à Rasca and beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology , 61 (4):457–73.
Bonnet, N. (2002) ‘The establishment of call centres in France: Between globalism and local geographical disparateness’, NETCOM , 16 (1–2):75–78.
Brook, P. (2009) ‘The alienated heart: Hochschild's “emotional labour” thesis and the anti-capitalist politics of alienation’, Capital & Class , 98:7–31.
Brophy, E. (2009) ‘Resisting call centre work: The Aliant strike and convergent unionism in Canada’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation , 3 (1):80–99.
Burawoy, M. (1991) ‘The extended case method’, in M. Burawoy, A. Burton, A.A. Ferguson, K.J. Fox, J. Gamson, L. Hurst, N.G. Julius, C. Kurzman, L. Salzinger, J. Schiffman & S. Ui. (eds) Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis , Berkeley: University of California Press: 271–87.
Burgess, J. & J. Connell (eds) (2006) Developments in the Call Center Industry: Analysis, Changes and Challenges , New York: Routledge.
Callaghan, G. & P. Thompson (1999) ‘Proceeding to the paddling pool: The selection and shaping of call centre labour’, Economics Working Papers, Open University.
Castells, M. (2012) Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age , Cambridge: Polity Press.
Della Porta, D., H. Kriesi & D. Rucht (eds) (1999) Social Movements in a Globalizing World , Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dex, S. & A. McCulloch (1995) ‘Flexible employment in Britain: A statistical analysis’, Equal Opportunities Commission Research Discussion Series, Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.
Diamond, W. & B. Freeman (2002) ‘Will unionism prosper in cyberspace? The promise of the internet for employee organization’, British Journal of Industrial Relations , 40 (3):569–96.
Drucker, P. (1959) Landmarks of Tomorrow , New York: Harper.
Dyer-Witheford, N. (2015) Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex , London: Pluto Press.
Earl, J. (2010) ‘The dynamics of protest-related diffusion on the web’, Information, Communication & Society , 13:209–25.
Edwards, R. (2001) ‘Digital activism in the independent media center movement’, Spectator , 21 (2): 82–94.
Estanque, E. (2000) Entre a Fá brica e a Comunidade: subjetividades e as prá ticas de classe no operariado do calçado , Porto: Afrontamento.
Estanque, E. (2006) ‘A questão social e a democracia no início do século XXI: participação cívica, desigualdades sociais e sindicalismo’, Revista Finisterra , 55/56/57:77–99.
Feixa, C., I. Pereira & J.S. Juris (2009) ‘Global citizenship and the “new, new” social movements: Iberian connections’, Young—Nordic Journal of Youth Research , 17 (4):421–42.
Ferreira, C. (2011) ‘A sociedade de austeridade: Poder, medo e direito do trabalho de exceção’, Revista Critica de Ciências Sociais , 95:119–36.
Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? , Winchester: Zero Books.
Fuchs, C. (2010) ‘Labor in informational capitalism and on the internet’, The Information Society , 26 (3):179–96.
Givan, R., K. Roberts & S. Soule (eds) (2010) The Diffusion of Social Movements: Actors, Mechanisms, and Political Effects , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Glucksmann, M. (2004) ‘Call configurations: Varieties of call centre and divisions of labour’, Work, Employment and Society , 18 (4):795–811.
Gurnani, S. (2016) ‘The financial crisis in Portugal: Austerity in perspective’, The Libraries Student Research Prize, Paper 9.
Hamelink, C. (2000) The Ethics of Cyberspace , London: SAGE.
Hardt, M. & A. Negri (2000) Empire , Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Harvey, D. (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hochschild, A. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling , Berkeley: University of California Press.
Huws, U. (2003) The Making of a Cybertariat: Virtual Work in a Real World , New York: Monthly Review Press.
Huws, U. (2009) ‘Working at the interface: Call centre labour in a global economy’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation , 3 (1):1–8.
Knights, D. & D. McCabe (2002) ‘What happens when the phone goes wild? Staff, stress and spaces for escape in a BPR regime’, Journal of Management Studies , 35 (2):163–94.
Ková cs, I. (2002) As Metamorfoses do Emprego: Ilusões e Problemas da Sociedade de Informação , Oeiras: Celta Editora.
Lukacs, G. (1971) History and Class: Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics , Great Britain: The Merlin Press.
McKarthy, K. (2005) ‘Is precarity enough?’, Mute: Precarious Reader , 2:54–58.
Mukherjee, A. & N. Malhotra (2006) ‘Does role clarity explain employee-perceived service quality? A study of antecedents and consequences in call centres’, International Journal of Service Industry Management , 17 (5):444–73.
Ness, I. (2014) ‘Introduction’, in I. Ness (ed.) New Forms of Worker Organization: The Syndicalist and Autonomist Restoration of Class Struggle Unionism , Oakland: PM Press:1–17.
Paul, J. & U. Huws (2002) How Can We Help? Good Practice in Call Centre Employment , Brussels: European Trade Union Confederation.
Pollert, A. & A. Charlwood (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work’, Work, Employment and Society , 23 (2):343–62.
Raymond, E.S. (1999) The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary , Cambridge: O'Reilly.
Rodgers, G. (1989) ‘Precarious work in western Europe: The state of the debate’, in G. Rodgers & J. Rodgers (eds) Precarious Jobs in Labour Market Regulation: The Growth of Atypical Employment in Western Europe , Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies; Free University of Brussels:1–16.
Rodgers, L. (2016) Labour Law, Vulnerability and the Regulation of Precarious Work , Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Roque, I. (2010) As linhas de montagem teleoperacionais no mundo dos call centres , Dissertação de Mestrado, Coimbra: Faculdade de Economia a Universidade de Coimbra.
Roque, I. (2016) ‘Psychosocial risks at the Portuguese contact centres’, in P.M. Arezes, J.S. Baptista, M.P. Barroso, P. Carneiro, P. Cordeiro, N. Costa, R.B. Melo, A.S. Miguel & G. Perestrelo (org) Occupational Safety and Hygiene IV , London: CRC Press:615–21.
Roque, I. (2017) ‘Trade unionism and social protest movements in Portuguese call centres’, Journal of Labour and Society , 21 (1): 55–75.
Sennett, R. (2001) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism , New York: Routledge.
Seymour, R. (2012) We Are All Precarious: On the Concept of the ‘Precariat’ and Its Misuses , New Left Project. Accessed May 30, 2018 from http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/we_are_all_precarious_on_the_concept_of_the_precariat_and_its_misuses.
Soule, S. (2004) ‘Diffusion processes within and across movements’, in D.A. Snow, S.A. Soule & H. Kriesi (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Social Movement , Malden: Blackwell:294–310.
Tarrow, S. (2005) The New Transnational Activism , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, P. & P. Bain (1999) ‘“An assembly line in the head”: Work and employee relations in the call centre’, Industrial Relations Journal , 30 (2):213–30.
Taylor, P. & P. Bain (2007) ‘Reflections on the call centre: A reply to Glucksman’, Work, Employment and Society , 21 (2):349–62.
Taylor, P., G. Mulvey, J. Hyman & P. Bain (2002) ‘Work organisation, control and the experience of work in call centres’, Work, Employment and Society , 16 (1):133–50.
Taylor, S. & M. Tyler (2000) ‘Emotional labour and sexual difference in the airline industry’, Work, Employment and Society , 14 (2):77–95.
Vosko, L. (2006) ‘Precarious employment: Towards an improved understanding of labour market insecurity’, in L. Vosko (ed.) Precarious Employment: Towards an Improved Understanding of Labour Market Insecurity , Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press:3–42.
Woodcock, J. (2016) Working the Phones Control and Resistance in Call Centres , London: Pluto Press.
Wright, E. (2005) ‘Social class’, in G. Ritzer (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Theory , vol. 2, Thousand Oaks: SAGE:717–24.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Antunes, R. & R. Braga (eds) (2009) Infoproletá rios: degradação real do trabalho virtual , São Paulo: Boitempo.

[2] Bauman, Z. (2002) A sociedade sitiada , Lisboa: Instituto Piaget.

[3] Baumgarten, B. (2013) ‘Geração à Rasca and beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology , 61 (4):457–73.

[4] Bonnet, N. (2002) ‘The establishment of call centres in France: Between globalism and local geographical disparateness’, NETCOM , 16 (1–2):75–78.

[5] Brook, P. (2009) ‘The alienated heart: Hochschild's “emotional labour” thesis and the anti-capitalist politics of alienation’, Capital & Class , 98:7–31.

[6] Brophy, E. (2009) ‘Resisting call centre work: The Aliant strike and convergent unionism in Canada’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation , 3 (1):80–99.

[7] Burawoy, M. (1991) ‘The extended case method’, in M. Burawoy, A. Burton, A.A. Ferguson, K.J. Fox, J. Gamson, L. Hurst, N.G. Julius, C. Kurzman, L. Salzinger, J. Schiffman & S. Ui. (eds) Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis , Berkeley: University of California Press: 271–87.

[8] Burgess, J. & J. Connell (eds) (2006) Developments in the Call Center Industry: Analysis, Changes and Challenges , New York: Routledge.

[9] Callaghan, G. & P. Thompson (1999) ‘Proceeding to the paddling pool: The selection and shaping of call centre labour’, Economics Working Papers, Open University.

[10] Castells, M. (2012) Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age , Cambridge: Polity Press.

[11] Della Porta, D., H. Kriesi & D. Rucht (eds) (1999) Social Movements in a Globalizing World , Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

[12] Dex, S. & A. McCulloch (1995) ‘Flexible employment in Britain: A statistical analysis’, Equal Opportunities Commission Research Discussion Series, Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.

[13] Diamond, W. & B. Freeman (2002) ‘Will unionism prosper in cyberspace? The promise of the internet for employee organization’, British Journal of Industrial Relations , 40 (3):569–96.

[14] Drucker, P. (1959) Landmarks of Tomorrow , New York: Harper.

[15] Dyer-Witheford, N. (2015) Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex , London: Pluto Press.

[16] Earl, J. (2010) ‘The dynamics of protest-related diffusion on the web’, Information, Communication & Society , 13:209–25.

[17] Edwards, R. (2001) ‘Digital activism in the independent media center movement’, Spectator , 21 (2): 82–94.

[18] Estanque, E. (2000) Entre a Fá brica e a Comunidade: subjetividades e as prá ticas de classe no operariado do calçado , Porto: Afrontamento.

[19] Estanque, E. (2006) ‘A questão social e a democracia no início do século XXI: participação cívica, desigualdades sociais e sindicalismo’, Revista Finisterra , 55/56/57:77–99.

[20] Feixa, C., I. Pereira & J.S. Juris (2009) ‘Global citizenship and the “new, new” social movements: Iberian connections’, Young—Nordic Journal of Youth Research , 17 (4):421–42.

[21] Ferreira, C. (2011) ‘A sociedade de austeridade: Poder, medo e direito do trabalho de exceção’, Revista Critica de Ciências Sociais , 95:119–36.

[22] Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? , Winchester: Zero Books.

[23] Fuchs, C. (2010) ‘Labor in informational capitalism and on the internet’, The Information Society , 26 (3):179–96.

[24] Givan, R., K. Roberts & S. Soule (eds) (2010) The Diffusion of Social Movements: Actors, Mechanisms, and Political Effects , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[25] Glucksmann, M. (2004) ‘Call configurations: Varieties of call centre and divisions of labour’, Work, Employment and Society , 18 (4):795–811.

[26] Gurnani, S. (2016) ‘The financial crisis in Portugal: Austerity in perspective’, The Libraries Student Research Prize, Paper 9.

[27] Hamelink, C. (2000) The Ethics of Cyberspace , London: SAGE.

[28] Hardt, M. & A. Negri (2000) Empire , Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[29] Harvey, D. (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[30] Hochschild, A. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling , Berkeley: University of California Press.

[31] Huws, U. (2003) The Making of a Cybertariat: Virtual Work in a Real World , New York: Monthly Review Press.

[32] Huws, U. (2009) ‘Working at the interface: Call centre labour in a global economy’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation , 3 (1):1–8.

[33] Knights, D. & D. McCabe (2002) ‘What happens when the phone goes wild? Staff, stress and spaces for escape in a BPR regime’, Journal of Management Studies , 35 (2):163–94.

[34] Ková cs, I. (2002) As Metamorfoses do Emprego: Ilusões e Problemas da Sociedade de Informação , Oeiras: Celta Editora.

[35] Lukacs, G. (1971) History and Class: Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics , Great Britain: The Merlin Press.

[36] McKarthy, K. (2005) ‘Is precarity enough?’, Mute: Precarious Reader , 2:54–58.

[37] Mukherjee, A. & N. Malhotra (2006) ‘Does role clarity explain employee-perceived service quality? A study of antecedents and consequences in call centres’, International Journal of Service Industry Management , 17 (5):444–73.

[38] Ness, I. (2014) ‘Introduction’, in I. Ness (ed.) New Forms of Worker Organization: The Syndicalist and Autonomist Restoration of Class Struggle Unionism , Oakland: PM Press:1–17.

[39] Paul, J. & U. Huws (2002) How Can We Help? Good Practice in Call Centre Employment , Brussels: European Trade Union Confederation.

[40] Pollert, A. & A. Charlwood (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work’, Work, Employment and Society , 23 (2):343–62.

[41] Raymond, E.S. (1999) The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary , Cambridge: O'Reilly.

[42] Rodgers, G. (1989) ‘Precarious work in western Europe: The state of the debate’, in G. Rodgers & J. Rodgers (eds) Precarious Jobs in Labour Market Regulation: The Growth of Atypical Employment in Western Europe , Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies; Free University of Brussels:1–16.

[43] Rodgers, L. (2016) Labour Law, Vulnerability and the Regulation of Precarious Work , Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

[44] Roque, I. (2010) As linhas de montagem teleoperacionais no mundo dos call centres , Dissertação de Mestrado, Coimbra: Faculdade de Economia a Universidade de Coimbra.

[45] Roque, I. (2016) ‘Psychosocial risks at the Portuguese contact centres’, in P.M. Arezes, J.S. Baptista, M.P. Barroso, P. Carneiro, P. Cordeiro, N. Costa, R.B. Melo, A.S. Miguel & G. Perestrelo (org) Occupational Safety and Hygiene IV , London: CRC Press:615–21.

[46] Roque, I. (2017) ‘Trade unionism and social protest movements in Portuguese call centres’, Journal of Labour and Society , 21 (1): 55–75.

[47] Sennett, R. (2001) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism , New York: Routledge.

[48] Seymour, R. (2012) We Are All Precarious: On the Concept of the ‘Precariat’ and Its Misuses , New Left Project. Accessed May 30, 2018 from http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/we_are_all_precarious_on_the_concept_of_the_precariat_and_its_misuses.

[49] Soule, S. (2004) ‘Diffusion processes within and across movements’, in D.A. Snow, S.A. Soule & H. Kriesi (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Social Movement , Malden: Blackwell:294–310.

[50] Tarrow, S. (2005) The New Transnational Activism , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[51] Taylor, P. & P. Bain (1999) ‘“An assembly line in the head”: Work and employee relations in the call centre’, Industrial Relations Journal , 30 (2):213–30.

[52] Taylor, P. & P. Bain (2007) ‘Reflections on the call centre: A reply to Glucksman’, Work, Employment and Society , 21 (2):349–62.

[53] Taylor, P., G. Mulvey, J. Hyman & P. Bain (2002) ‘Work organisation, control and the experience of work in call centres’, Work, Employment and Society , 16 (1):133–50.

[54] Taylor, S. & M. Tyler (2000) ‘Emotional labour and sexual difference in the airline industry’, Work, Employment and Society , 14 (2):77–95.

[55] Vosko, L. (2006) ‘Precarious employment: Towards an improved understanding of labour market insecurity’, in L. Vosko (ed.) Precarious Employment: Towards an Improved Understanding of Labour Market Insecurity , Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press:3–42.

[56] Woodcock, J. (2016) Working the Phones Control and Resistance in Call Centres , London: Pluto Press.

[57] Wright, E. (2005) ‘Social class’, in G. Ritzer (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Theory , vol. 2, Thousand Oaks: SAGE:717–24.

Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

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