Notes!: Del Bono and Henry 2008

this article looks at the circumstances that accompanies the development of companies that outsource call center/service jobs to Argentina (8)
the call centers are unionize but these unions pose little threat to the use of subcontracting by employers
by refraining from trying to get better conditions for workers, a place becomes more likely to have flexible work relationships, whcih in turn weakens the unions

argument: the unions contribute, either by action or omission, to the consilidation of the call center sector in Argentina
and then businesses can threaten to move their operations if workers become strong or if they lose flexibility

argument: it is the labor/EMPLOYMENT relations that strongly affect the general charactersistics of union action in the call center sector (9)
looks at two companies, one from US one from France
unions involved: FAECyS, FOEESITRA, FOETRA in Buenos Aires

call center jobs are growing a lot (10)
since the devaluation, the call center industry has been segmented, with local companies who cal to Argentina and multinationals who call outside Argentina (11-12)
BA, Cordoba, and Rosario are the big centers for call centers (12)
call centers looking mostly for cheap labor costs (13)

call center businesses leave places with expensive workers and look for places with low cost worekrs with few legal rights

this challenges unions, as it can be hard to keep employment and make it a decent job
call centers, tertiarization, and delocalization of work fragment unions and leaders (14)

the collective agreements that exist leave many workplace issues untouched, including length of day, work conditions, etc (15)
FAECyS hasn't changed their contract with employers since 1975
this union was important, even through the 1990s, and negotiated with the government in the 1990s about the conditions of structural change, not oppose them (16)
call centers hire young workers, and they meet a union that is unwilling to organize and doesn't have a strong enough identity to strengthen their position against employers
there is NO connection communication between workers in call centers and unions, unions have no presence at work
BUT unions note that the minute they demand anything, the company can just move somewhere else, like Peru or chile (17)
contracts are very short term, sometimes use mentoring/internships to get young workers to work (18)

but this means that there is a lot of turnover, which can be a problem for employers
businesses think employees move on because the want experience in other businesses, less because there is no career path, no worklife balance, and low wages

workers are hired to work 30 hours a week, and collective contracts in other telephone work limits work horus to 6 or 7 horus aday, but call center workers usually work more like 8 or 9 in a day, signalling a loss of rights only because the contracts for other telephone work are written too specifically (19)

wages also vary a great deal
THE COLLECTIVE CONTRACT IN THIS CASE acts more as a way for teh business to develop, a "legal cover", rather than true collective representation (20)

they seem more willing to demand changes, want tercerization to end (20-21)
proposed a law that would define telephoe employees as the same as long as they used telephone for three hours a day, this is a way to stop division among different groups of worekrs in telecom (21)

this would allow FOETRA to expand the good conditions found in other places to call centers and other workplaces that have gotten through with loopholes (22)
but, of course, this law had little chance of passing

thsi seems mostly to be an attempt to get the workers who were spun off from ENTEL back into FOETRA (23)
FOETRA did some strieks, protests, etc against a group called Atento between 2004 and 2006 (24)

but there was little fixed capital, so the strikes were broken pretty easily, work was moved quickly to other places
other workers didn't join in with this, as workforce is fragemented (25)
same story with another company, an internet company, from 2005-2007 (25)

thus it is becoming increasingly clear that classic, local responses to issue in call centers won't work, and they need much more unity across the sector (26)

government may be prolabor now, but unions still dealing with leftover burdens of neoliberalism (26)
though unions have regained power, they still face a big challenge of the demand by employers for flexible work (27)
in this case, fleixiblization of work has allowed businesses to push back some labor rights, and unions at the national level haven't been able to effectively push back
local institutions do affect call centers, and unions have a chance to improve things (just seem to want to end on a high note) (27-28)

Notes!