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The kind of people that end up working in the kinds of call centers that do these activities are not the kind of people that experience a "free market" of emplo

The kind of people that end up working in the kinds of call centers that do these activities are not the kind of people that experience a "free market" of employment. They're abused because they are unable to work elsewhere, so they tolerate it, no matter how soul wrenching it is, because they need money to live. Working at a call center is akin to emergency medical care, but for financial surviving.

Guthur 5y ago
Why are they unable to work else where?
- fogihujy 5y ago
  I worked for a call center for a few years, first job once I was done with school. A lot of the people who were hired were simply shipped in by the local unemployment agency. After being unemployed for X days, the government simply offered to pay parts of their salaries for six months as a means to stimulate local employers to hiring more people. The result was that various firms like Teleperformance and the like placed call centres in areas of high unemployment, and thousands of people were put on the phone lines with insufficient training, made to work under sub-par conditions for six months, before getting promptly sacked for arbitrary reasons just before their probation period was over. These are just businesses abusing the system. Not accepting the job offers would have meant financial ruin. The people who are subjected to this usually have no other options available, and they're then run into the ground and promptly discarded once they were no longer useful.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  Call centers (in Central America at least) are the most readily available jobs that allow the worker to achieve a middle class lifestlye. Their entry level positions require only a High School degree and fluent English. And pay more than what a Master Degree could earn in other companies. For example, in El Salvador they pay twice than other jobs, always comply with overtime and night working hours payment rules, offer English improvement classes, University compensation, and offer private medical insurance as a benefit. This benefits are higher than what most small/mid businesses can offer. Employees don't have much choice, faced with the decision of turning on a webcam for a $800+ per month job + benefits, or working in another job for minimum wage for $340 per month (and working on site under CCTV)
golergka 5y ago
> They're abused because they are unable to work elsewhere That's absurd. Even if you make a (false) claim that they're only able to work at a call center and all other professions are closed to them, there are many different call centers that all compete for the same labour. > Working at a call center is akin to emergency medical care, but for financial surviving. If you want to provide care, you can do it. I do it myself. But it's completely immoral to put it as a responsibility on somebody who just buys these people's services. When you go to buy groceries, you don't suddenly become ethically responsible for the grocer's financial situation, do you?
- f6v 5y ago
  > Even if you make a (false) claim that they're only able to work at a call center and all other professions are closed to them, there are many different call centers that all compete for the same labour. To be fair, being call center agent sucks in many places. Maybe you don’t get a camera installed in your home, but breaks are short, shifts are long and you get 5 minutes to eat lunch. You can always go work for Amazon at the warehouse. But I’ve heard it’s not that great either.
  - golergka 5y ago
    That's absolutely true, but that's not some nefarious agent being evil. That's just society as a whole not assigning a lot of value to unskilled labour.

Guthur 5y ago

Why are they unable to work else where?

fogihujy 5y ago
I worked for a call center for a few years, first job once I was done with school. A lot of the people who were hired were simply shipped in by the local unemployment agency. After being unemployed for X days, the government simply offered to pay parts of their salaries for six months as a means to stimulate local employers to hiring more people. The result was that various firms like Teleperformance and the like placed call centres in areas of high unemployment, and thousands of people were put on the phone lines with insufficient training, made to work under sub-par conditions for six months, before getting promptly sacked for arbitrary reasons just before their probation period was over. These are just businesses abusing the system. Not accepting the job offers would have meant financial ruin. The people who are subjected to this usually have no other options available, and they're then run into the ground and promptly discarded once they were no longer useful.
el-salvador 5y ago
Call centers (in Central America at least) are the most readily available jobs that allow the worker to achieve a middle class lifestlye. Their entry level positions require only a High School degree and fluent English. And pay more than what a Master Degree could earn in other companies. For example, in El Salvador they pay twice than other jobs, always comply with overtime and night working hours payment rules, offer English improvement classes, University compensation, and offer private medical insurance as a benefit. This benefits are higher than what most small/mid businesses can offer. Employees don't have much choice, faced with the decision of turning on a webcam for a $800+ per month job + benefits, or working in another job for minimum wage for $340 per month (and working on site under CCTV)

golergka 5y ago

> They're abused because they are unable to work elsewhere That's absurd. Even if you make a (false) claim that they're only able to work at a call center and all other professions are closed to them, there are many different call centers that all compete for the same labour. > Working at a call center is akin to emergency medical care, but for financial surviving. If you want to provide care, you can do it. I do it myself. But it's completely immoral to put it as a responsibility on somebody who just buys these people's services. When you go to buy groceries, you don't suddenly become ethically responsible for the grocer's financial situation, do you?

f6v 5y ago
> Even if you make a (false) claim that they're only able to work at a call center and all other professions are closed to them, there are many different call centers that all compete for the same labour. To be fair, being call center agent sucks in many places. Maybe you don’t get a camera installed in your home, but breaks are short, shifts are long and you get 5 minutes to eat lunch. You can always go work for Amazon at the warehouse. But I’ve heard it’s not that great either.
- golergka 5y ago
  That's absolutely true, but that's not some nefarious agent being evil. That's just society as a whole not assigning a lot of value to unskilled labour.