Let the sunshine in: House bill promoting call center employees rights

Updates on the recently held round-table discussion on BPO workers rights and welfare.

The second round-table discussion on call center rights and welfare finally happened on October 13, 2010 at Gelatissimo, Greenbelt 5, Makati City. It was attended by call center agents from as far as Manila area, QC area, and, with a large contingent, Makati area. We were able to gather 5 major call center locations. A total of 24 participants attended the event.

The program formally started with the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) sharing its research on the plight of BPO employees. Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino presented salient points of House Bill 2592 or the BPO Workers and Welfare Act of 2010.

Below are some of the points raised during the discussion:

1)Right to Freedom of Association. All participants attest to the sad fact that they are not given a venue in which they could discuss their issues or concerns as employees. As pointed out in the paper “Offshored Work in Philippine BPOs” by Prof. Maragtas ‘Noy’ Amante, former professor at the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLAIR) and currently professor at Hanyang University in South Korea, “despite the high level of communications technology in the industry, most BPO firms are short on the concept of employee involvement.” This was further validated in a recently published book by the International Labor Organization (ILO), “Offshoring and Working Conditions in Remote Work,” which asserts that the BPO industry should "redesign" its work processes, especially in call centers, "to allow BPO workers a democratised participation in policy-making through the formation unions or associations," among other things. The book further stresses that "BPO firms have restrictive rules and procedures which hamper the democratic rights of the employees be it on decision-making or bargaining."

2)Work-related health problems. The nature of the work of most BPO centers is stressful because of various factors: heavy workload, intermittent changes in work shift, irate customers, performance demands, and so on. Given these, BPO employees are vulnerable and exposed to work-related health problems such as hypertension and migraine.

3)Regularization. This is one of the highlights of the bill filed by Rep. Palatino. The Labor Code of the Philippines gives no exception to the standard rule that regularisation should be on the 6th month of employment.

4)Lack of Due Process. An innumerable number of cases that range from illegal termination to salary disputes are being handled by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC). In a recent dialogue of Rep. Palatino with DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldos, the latter confirmed that, indeed, labor disputes are a common problem being addressed by the department. Rep. Palatino stressed the need to set-up a desk that specifically caters to concerns of BPO employees.

5)Salary disputes, hazard pay, forced overtime, no extra-pay for agents who are multi-skilled or overloading of work and so on.

From the discussion, several campaign plans were set including the formation of a BPO employees' association or alliance. The participants also pledged to actively lobby for the immediate passage of the bill. Activities and initiatives such as t-shirt wearing, rotating decentralised and clustered discussions were immediately set.

The next decentralised discussion will be held in Cubao, with participants from Quezon City area pledging to host the event.#

See related posts:

House Bill 2592: A bill for the protection of the rights and welfare of BPO workers

Call Center Bill: Understanding Its Salient Provisions