Bulatlat.com’s interviews of some call center employees tend to suggest also that CCAP’s estimated average basic salaries of P16,000 to P17,000 ($366 to $389) for call center employees in 2010 may be higher than what the employees are actually getting. This reported average may only be true for those who have had at least two years’ experience and are handling more technical accounts.
For the rest who are just starting out, the salaries are much lower. A contractual call center employee in Aegis, for instance, handling a “mere local account”, receives only P9,000 ($206) a month. In a Teleperformance branch that does not regularize its employees, salaries are lower than the starting of P13,000 ($297) in other call centers.
In EILER’s survey, call centers that took advantage of the government-induced location in the “next-wave” cities of the Philippines are found to have paid their employees as low as P10,000 ($228) or less a month in 2008, when the call center boom was at its peak and the “cost-creep” in labor cost was not yet being widely aired.
CCAP’s Benedict Hernandez said locating in cities outside of the more established Metro Manila offers only “marginal advantages” such as a reduction of 10-percent or less in labor costs. But Parekh of SPi Global said places like Dumaguete and Iloilo have “great talents,” and locating there is a “great way for employers looking at managing price pressures.” He reiterated the Philippine government’s offer of 20 other Philippine cities that are “quite open for BPOs.”
So far some 70-percent to 80-percent of call center companies are estimated to be still in Metro Manila, Uligan said. Other companies prefer the “proven locations”, said Hernandez.
Salaries, it seemed, can still be controlled in proven locations as Metro Manila, despite stiff competition for ‘talents’ by call centers. Unemployment rates in the Philippines have been unprecedentedly high despite the vaunted BPOs in the past decade. There are at least 848,000 new graduates this summer seeking employment, with many aiming for call centers.
A BPO employee lamented during a Kabataan Partylist roundtable discussion that companies can bravely and easily fire employees. Its HR departments, said other long-time employees, are swimming in applications.
In a BPO company called Stellar in Metro Manila, for instance, some call center employees complained that they could not understand why their salaries amount to only P13,200 ($302) when it is supposed to be P14,00 ($320). The company gave a vague explanation that their salaries are “pro-rated.”
In other call centers, employees said they had been made to work like regular employees with peak workload during their training period, but they were only paid measly training allowances.
There are also particular work setups in some call center companies. For example at NCO, the company offered a salary amounting to P85,000 ($1,946) for 85 working days. “But you have to be young to be able to comply with the expected output and you have to be willing to work for only a three-month program duration,” said a contact center employee. “If you are a project-based employee, you’re like a willing victim,” she concluded.
Allow BPO Workers to Form Unions and Advocacy Groups
Health issues being faced by BPO workers are also notable, according to EILER. Different institutions have cited the health risks of working in BPOs especially during graveyard shifts. EILER for one, noted how female agents usually suffer urinary tract infections due to the short break allowed for personal necessities— only10 minutes per day. The International Labor Organization (ILO) said night shift call-center agents are prone to sleep disorders, fatigue, eye strain, neck, shoulder and back pains, and voice problems, work stress-induced by harassment from irate clients, excessive and tedious workload, performance demands, monotony, and regular night work.
As a labor advocate, Escresa-Colina is critical of the lack of unions and the reported outright ban in joining unions in BPOs. No BPO company has had a union yet, Escresa noted, adding that it has been reported to them that BPO employees are being discouraged by the management from joining or forming unions during their trainings. In some companies, a no-union provision is even clearly stipulated in pre-employment contracts, said EILER. “This is a direct violation of our constitution,” Escresa said.
“BPO companies boast of having the ‘best HR practices’ as their model in managing industrial relations. It should be reiterated that no HR practice can substitute the role of unions in upholding and promoting workers rights inside the workplace. Unions are part of our democratic institutions. It plays a crucial role in achieving people-oriented development. To show the world that the Philippines is really the leader for the global BPO industry, we should show as well that we respect and uphold the rights of BPO workers in our country,” Escresa-Colina said.
EILER urged the government to work in ensuring that no rights of BPO workers are being violated or compromised. It warned that if the dismal working conditions prevailing in BPO companies will not be seriously addressed, the Philippines will be the next modern-day sweatshop for the services sector.
The Kabataan Partylist, for its part, urged call center agents to form “advocacy groups who will constantly get involved in various activities to promote the rights and welfare of call center agents in their workplaces and even among other companies.” Palatino said that “It is only through the collective action of BPO and call center employees that we could ensure a law protecting them would be enacted and implemented.” 
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The BPO is a very promising industry, but as the report points out, if we only take the low-end jobs (i.e. call center) we won't be getting the best out of it. The BPO industry must aim to attract high-paying jobs that would enable our IT's or engineers… to use their skills in such jobs. The industry deserves the support it gets from the government, but at the same time, it is also important to protect the welfare of those working in the industry.
This is the illusion being fostered by this industry. The call center "industry" hardly makes a dent in the country's needed jobs, at the cost of offering Pinoy new grads as some of the lowest paid qualified labor in the globe. That is "lucky"? Geez! If asking for fair, humane, treatment and better job could threaten this industry, whose interests are you advocating for?
We should be lucky and thankful for the call center industry. WIthout it, many Filipinos would have gone abroad for a lower income or would have gone into the poverty line. The call center industry provides more jobs to graduates who can't find a job in the degree they took up, maybe because they still lack the hard or soft skills or need work experience first. Geez! Don't destroy this industry only because it doesn't jive with your interests or advocacies.
it is not "destroying" the industry as you put it, the government must see to it that the workers, must be given their due. there's what you call security of tenure, which by the way is filed in Congress to help protect workers from contractualization and de-regularization.