Call center agents and BPO workers unite! Support House Bill 2592!

A few days ago, a call center agent visited us at the Congress office to express her despair over the working conditions in her place of work. She’s now been dismissed (for being a “trouble maker”), and is currently fighting for her separation benefits in court. She reveals how she’s also been afflicted with carpal tunnel syndrome which her company refuses to compensate as a work-related problem. She claims she is not the only one suffering the same. Many of her co-workers have apparently also gotten pneumonia, two of whom had died. Many of them also have urinary tract infection (UTI).

She is not the first one to approach us narrating their problems working with BPO companies. It has become apparent that many BPO (business process outsourcing) companies commit various forms of exploitation in order to rake in the profits from this “sunshine industry”. From refusing to grant regularization to workers having had worked for more than six months (through various schemes), to refusing to provide adequate health and occupational safety services in such a sickness-prone environment (one of the surprisingly very common grievance is the no-bathroom break policy), many (I would assume that not all) companies (as in any industry) employ various means to maintain their profit margins at the expense of their employees.

It is in this context, that we filed House Bill 2592, or the “BPO Workers Welfare and Protection Act” to assert the prescribed labor standards set forth in the Labor Code and institutionalize additional benefits that would address specific work-related problems and issues peculiar to the nature of BPO work.

Our office is scheduled to meet with call center agents in a round-table discussion on the October 13 at Gelatissimo, Greenbelt 5, Makati City. The round-table discussion is the first in a series of consultations we are set to hold as part of the campaign to solicit support for House Bill 2592. If you work in a call center in Makati and would like to see better days ahead in your industry, do come, so we can talk about how lobby for this bill and ensure the rights of the hundreds of thousands of call center agents in the country.