Deliverers in a hurry of generalized uberization, butchers of junk food pigs, over-qualified professionals of culture and education on the cheap, workers in sweatshirts or new proletarians of the delocalized digital chain of customer services: this series “The new proletarians” paints the portrait of a new world of exploited and precarious work.
When we add up the time spent serving customers on the phone by Montrealer Daniel Beaulieu, we arrive at nearly 55,000 hours and about a good quarter of a million customers, including a few tens of thousands of first-class pests.
“My job pays me well,” said the employee of the same telephone company for thirty years. I have good benefits. On the other hand, mentally, it is a stressful job. It only takes two or three bad customers to demolish a day. And then, now, we are asked to offer all customer and marketing services, in two languages and in ten provinces with different promotions. The conditions become very difficult. Every day, I get up from my post and I say to myself: “What am I doing here?” »
The old-timer still earns $27.70 an hour, the maximum in customer service for a unionized employee in Quebec, which starts at an hourly rate of $20.16. In subcontracted and non-unionized companies, the salary ranges from approximately $14.25 to $18.
The average annual income established by Statistics Canada for a call center agent is $30,244. There are now approximately 13,000 employees in this sector (including government services) in Quebec.
“Big Brother is watching…”
“The staff turnover rate is very high,” explains Pierre-Luc Dick, national vice-president of Local Section 1944 of the United Steelworkers (FTQ) in Rimouski. “A hiring class of 12 people can end up with six employees six months later. The conditions are difficult. Employees are closely monitored. Big Brother is watching… The pressure for performance is very great and the work task is constantly increasing. »
Professor Julie Cloutier of the Department of Organization and Human Resources at UQAM adds to this, with research support. A decade ago, she co-conducted a vast study of the employees of three large call centers in Quebec. More than half (57%) of the respondents to its questionnaires showed signs of psychological distress deemed to be significant or very significant, i.e. three times more than the Quebec average.
There were about 200 service centers in Quebec at the time, and the rate of resignation and burnout among agents worried the unions as much as the employers. The study confirmed a turnover rate of approximately 20% of employees each year.
Mr. Beaulieu says he sees a similar rate of burnout in his department at certain times of the year. “The volume of calls should be reduced,” he says. If I was given just thirty seconds between each client, my job would change a lot. He would also like to no longer be used as a “superagent”, that is to say dealing with customer services, but also with the marketing of new products.
Follow the script
The name of the series designating call center employees as new proles does not shock Professor Cloutier in any way. “We wonder why people are going to work there,” she said. Normally, we choose a rewarding job because we love what we do. Customer agent is a very repetitive job, with no leeway. Employees don’t make any decisions, follow the script responding to the customer, who often yells at them after waiting too long in line. They have hours not possible, evenings, weekends. »
The professor says it even more frankly: this job is chosen out of spite, often by people who have no choice. “The remaining employees are depressed, can’t sleep, are anxious. If we continue to live broken, with tears in our eyes, we no longer have a choice. »
The findings of his investigation were presented to employees and employers alike, often surprised. “The main problem with call centers is that we squeeze the lemon until we decide to move the service abroad, where we can squeeze it otherwise with working conditions still worse. »
A hiring class of 12 people can end up with six employees six months later. The conditions are difficult. Employees are closely monitored. Big Brother is watching… The pressure for performance is very high and the work task is constantly increasing.
Pierre-Luc Dick started as a customer agent himself in 2006. As union leader, he represents approximately 8,000 members of the sector in Canada. They were 17,000 in 2006. The bleeding is partly explained by the use of subcontractors here and abroad.
$400 per month
Several companies established in Tunisia serve the Canadian market, especially in receiving calls and sometimes in canvassing. Their clients are Dell, UPS or HP, for example. Bell Canada outsources its services to Concentrix.
Myriam Ben Gayes works for Vistaprint, a company which employs more than 1,000 people in Tunisia, but not only at the call center which hires a few hundred. The Francophone service serves Switzerland, Belgium, France and French Canada. Other sections deal with the rest of the world, in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, and even Mandarin or Cantonese.
Myriam Ben Gayes began her career at PayPal around 2014, when the Canadian market was opening up. She learned to understand the Quebec accent. “At the start, it was hard, very, very hard even,” she says. We had training to help us. »
She adds that “Canadian customers are the nicest, friendliest on the phone.” Still, the job often involves dealing with disgruntled customers. “Over time, we adapt and we learn quickly who we are dealing with and we know how to calm the exchanges. »
Mme Ben Gayes works mostly in English now. A typical work day involves eight hours of production, with a one hour lunch break and thirty minutes of additional breaks. The time difference makes it necessary to offer teleservice at night in America, ie from 10 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. Tunis time.
A typical call center employee earns around C$400 a month, double that for night jobs like Mr.me Ben Gays.
“You have to distinguish between a company like Vistaprint, which has its own portfolio of customers, and a call center that serves several of them,” explains Myriam Ben Gayes. I did five, six years in call centers. The conditions are difficult there. You are not allowed to use your personal mobile phone, for example, or to access the Internet on the computer. The break times are fixed and you cannot go to the toilet before these break times. »
She says that a few years ago, while working for one of these centers, a death occurred in her family. “I wanted to leave and they forbade me, forcing me to finish my shift, she says. I quit and went home. »
Mme Ben Gayes created the “I work in a call center” Facebook page at the start of the pandemic, to discuss COVID-19 in the sector. The social network is now used to talk about working conditions in the profession. She transferred the management of the page to a colleague. “There were too many depressing stories, so I dropped out…”