Call centre brings problems for owners, workers

Call centres: they’re a product of the new global economy. The buyer of a product in New York, for example, may find that when he dials that eight hundred number for service advice the phone is answered in New Delhi. For Belize, with an educated English speaking work force, it was only a matter of time for such operations to reach our shores. But as both workers and owners have discovered, globalisation does not always run smoothly.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
In June of last year, Ready Call, an internet-based international call centre operation opened for business on New Road in Belize City with approximately twenty-five employees. Today the number of Belizeans employed at the centre is upwards of six hundred people working in shifts. But with that rapid growth has come a long list of complaints against the company.

Twenty year old Rachel Sedacy worked at Ready Call for seven months. She says she quit in January because working conditions became unbearable.

Rachel Sedacy, Former Ready Call Employee
?The biggest problem at Ready Call Centre is the pay. Every time you get paid, it?s not on time, that?s one issue. The second thing, it?s not accurate. Most of the time you have to be at the Human Resource Department claiming monies that are owed to you. They don?t respect sick days; that?s always a problem to get your money, even when you take your Social Security document on time, it?s still a problem.?

But more disturbingly, News Five has received emails from former employees claiming that sexual harassment is an everyday reality at Ready Call. Sedacy says while she?s not a victim, she has witnessed improper behaviour on the job.

Rachel Sedacy
?I have seen it?I don?t experience it for myself, but for other people I have seen it. Not physical contact, but in words and it?s the same thing.?

Janelle Chanona
?This is done by managers, supervisors??

Rachel Sedacy
?The managers … I don?t want to call any names, but the managers and in particular the proprietor?s husband.?

Janelle Chanona
?And if you don?t accept these advances, does anything happen??

Rachel Sedacy
?Well I think there?s a stereotype there. Whoever allows them to take advantage of that?who does not allow them to take advantage of them, they get treated a different way because the ones that suck up, that we would call it, they get promotions and they get treated right.?

Janelle Chanona
?We have also had reports of like sexual advances on the job??

Cordelia Belizaire, former Ready Call employee
?Well the sexual harassment, I will not make a comment on that, but believe me, what you are hearing is true.?

When we visited Ready Call this morning, in the outer office, this employee bulletin reads: In response to requests from our employees to review lunch schedules, we are pleased to inform you that effective Sunday, February fifth, the following break schedule applies. That ?schedule? authorises a six hour shift worker to have two ten-minute breaks, an eight hour shift employee to get two fifteen-minute breaks, and if an employee works a ten hour shift he or she receives one half hour break and two fifteen-minute breaks.

An official release from the company in response to media reports of problems at Ready Call admitted ?cultural and contextual unfamiliarity and failure of administrative systems to evolve in concert with the growth of the organisation undermined our attractiveness as an employer.?

This evening, we were invited back to the building for a tour of the facility. Inside we found hundreds of workers and some more interesting signs. But Ready Call owner Nubia Ramirez maintains that her company?s operation has been ?okayed? by the Labour Department. Ramirez says the rumours are the work of mischief-makers intent on destroying her company.

Nubia Ramirez, Owner, Ready Call
?I can say that most of the things that are happening, especially during the last two weeks, most of them that are rumours, of course we know who is behind that. We are going to start the legal actions that we need to do. At this point, we never spoke to the media because at the beginning we were thinking, okay, they are rumours. But now this is like a bad dream that you are trying to keep the business running and everything and they are insisting when they can find what they want to show because it?s not true.?

?We grow very quickly. We are not saying that everything is perfect, but none of these rumours, ideas, they are saying are true. So the plan of course?you can see the letter is just saying, okay we found that you have a strong management team, you have people interested offering good customer service, and so the idea is to stabilise the size of this call centre and as soon as we can get it the quality that we are trying to find we can continue growing, and of course, generating more jobs and opening the business.?

Former Ready Call Employee
?Agents is being terminated because of these petitions that we had had them signed. These are names of agents that had agreed for us to form a union. Now right now we are working on the B.C.W.U. to represent us because we are a telecommunications in the same field. Now what is happening is that we are being terminated just because we are forming our union.?

But outside, former employers are persistent in their claims that attempts to unionise are met with intimidation and threats of termination.

Cordelia Belizaire
?They say they we are not performing. It?s not our performance, it?s because we are standing up strong and we?re trying to represent the workers of Ready Call Centre. They are being told that if they attend our B.N.T.U. meeting so that the representatives there can speak about what a union is about, they will be terminated. It is not fair, it is our right. And I stated that to them, this is our right, we cannot be terminated.?

Rachel Sedacy
?They come from, the owners come from Colombia, probably they don?t know the laws of Belize or something, but something needs to be done about it because there is a lot of glitches with the Labour Department. I don?t really want to get into that, but there?s a lot of glitches why this is taking so long to be addressed.?

We understand that union executives will continue to meet with workers’ representatives tomorrow in Belize City.