Letters from the call center workers (1)

Recently my aunt wrote an article in the Philippine Panorama calling attention to the lives of Filipinos working at the call centers there. The call center industry is pretty big in the Philippines. I’m sure some of you have called customer support of some company and get an English-speaking Filipino on the other line.

In response to her article, some call center agents have written letters to her describing what they go through on a daily basis. Here’s one of them. I’ll show you another one tomorrow.

“…I wrote to tell you that I nearly cried when I read what you wrote last Sunday about the workers. I am a 28 years old call center quality analyst. Just like what you said I earn my keep daily. No work no pay. I would like to inform most of the people out there who are not aware of our situation. It is often assumed that we are earning very big and that’s it. But give me the chance to tell you our side of the story. We (from the call center industry) might be earning a little bigger than the usual. But since we work at night or U.S. office hours, we have to pay extra for our fare it’s either we take the cab or ride tricycles that charge extra fare at wee hours, or leave earlier so we can still catch the last trip of the MRT. Since we work at night our health is also at risk, we have to take extra vitamins or other health products to ensure our source of income.”

“We follow very strict rules which include our attendance and tardiness. Say we earn at least R500 to R800 a day less tax of not less than P2,000 every 10 to 15 days of pay minus our daily expenses and maintenance I assume we have a clean take home pay of at least R300. Not much compared to those who are from the different industry with lesser tax to pay.”

“Every time we celebrate a Philippine holiday we still have work we just get additional (not always double pay) pay. We are greatly affected every time the President would move the holiday to a Monday, because our shift starts at 9pm Monday. We are paid based on real time/Manila time so we get additional pay for only 3 hours instead of 8 hours. Say the Araw ng Kagitingan holiday was supposed to be celebrated Wednesday, the President moved it to Monday and we lost 5 hours of extra pay. Not only that, we can’t choose not to go to work because that could mean our job.”

“Since we work at night, the quality of our family time is also affected. Family time can never be paid by any amount. Unless you are born to a well-off family that can afford the luxuries in life, you just choose to work in the call center industry and make up with what ever you still can that is lost. We endure the hardship because we need the job, the food on the table, the medicine, shelter and education. For us, recreation is just a privilege and not a right anymore. We chose to stay here because we cannot leave our families behind or our skills and educational attainment are not enough. Despite these factors, we pay our taxes diligently though we cannot see the government’s effort to help us….”