Are BPO workers exploited? Do they work in slave-like conditions? If you ask a resident of Bangalore or Noida or Pune, where BPO employees are ferried in large Toyota Qualises, where they are seen buying the latest gizmos in fancy malls, they would respond that you are out of your mind. But if you are one who trusts reports, here is something interesting. The VV Giri National Institute of Labour Report on BPOs states that BPO workers are working in conditions comparable to slave labour in Rome.Why? you ask. According to the report, BPO employees work on a temporary basis with surveillance cameras watching them all the time, working for managers who monitor performance on a daily basis, for companies that force them to work on Sundays and holidays, and horror of horrors, HR managers who actually package work as fun! Not to mention the continuous feedback, warnings on slacking, and so on.Anyone familiar with the BPO industry knows the sensitivity of the information handled by these operations. After all, if anyone were to have access to our financial, medical or other personal information, we would want procedures to ensure that the information isn’t misused. Why is it wrong if the operations try to protect their consumers by employing cameras? Why is it wrong if the company wants to ensure best customer service by asking customers for feedback about their experience? Do we want our best companies to behave like government departments, where callousness and discourteousness rule the roost?The other issues raised by the Institute are similar. Performance monitoring, appraisals based on customer feedback, differential salaries etc are all characteristics of high performance work places. In today’s globalised world, where the customer is king, companies need to monitor, appraise, and retain top performers if they want to get ahead. Furthermore, considering the high demand for talented people in the industry, employees are free to move to greener pastures if they want to. Why can’t the Institute understand that people are voting with their feet - for every BPO employee that quits, there are 10 people willing to take that place?It is not that all is well in the BPO industry. Employees face health risks and problems with their families, and most BPO firms do not provide a very exciting career path to their employees. However, these are problems that can be tackled, but that is something the unions are not interested in doing. What CITU and AITUC want is that the BPO sector shutdown at their clarion call. They are not interested in the real problems of white-collar workers, just as they aren’t interested in solving the real problems of the blue-collar workers.It is tragic that a sector of the economy that has brought encomiums to the country is being criticised for all the wrong reasons. Imagine comparing slave labour to a desk job in an air-conditioned room! Imagine complaining about performance monitoring in the 21st century! Imagine, criticising HR managers for doing their job - managing employee morale. In fact, the work conditions, compensation, and opportunities for employees in the BPO sector are far better than those in that darling of the unions - the government.For example, the BPO sector employs many physically challenged people. They are provided suitable facilities to assist them in performing their jobs. The central and state governments too employ the disabled. How many central and state government buildings have ramps for those in wheel chairs? How many have special equipment to read and write? How many of them have toilets for the disabled? What about the gangmen working for your municipality who descend into filth everytime they have to clean a blocked drain? Why doesn’t the Institute talk about these workers? Why don’t trade unions want to organise them and give them a voice?Well, it is because these employees are not the poster boys of the 21st century. They are not envied, because they don’t travel in fancy Toyota Qualises. They are not envied because they are not visible. And if you talk about them, the newspaper will most likely, not give it front page coverage. Further, what better way to be with the ‘aam-aadmi’ than by criticising the brash, super-rich BPO companies? The country would have been better served if the National Institute of Labour took a holistic view - taking into consideration how the BPO sector has reduced educated unemployment, how it has employed hundreds of women and disabled, giving them dignity, and how beyond revenues and numbers, it has improved India’s image from a country of beggars and poverty to a country that stands on its own feet. It is indeed unfortunate that the Institute chose not to do so.The writer is a software engineer working for Hewlett-Packard, Bangalore.
