STRIKE MONDAY 23/12/2024
DEMONSTRATION MONDAY 23/12/2024 AT 19:00 AT TP OFFICES IN PIRAEUS (25 GRAVIA)
Teleperformance (TP) workers were faced with an “original Christmas present” when the company’s management announced to dozens of them that it would not renew their contracts at the end of the year. The people who collectively shouted “Enough is Enough” in the face of a modern workplace cage, demanding wage increases and the signing of a Collective Labour Agreement (CBA) through successive mass strikes in 2024, are now facing a vindictive response from the company. The same company that never sat down at the negotiating table and is now proceeding with mass layoffs and out-of-court settlements with the business union of SETEP workers.
Who is TP Greece
TP Greece is a subsidiary of the French multinational Teleperformance which undertakes customer service for products of technological giants such as Apple, Meta, etc. The company has maintained a steady upward trend in recent years with turnover and profitability of €453.24 million and €61.165 million respectively for 2023, employing now more than 13,000 employees and having 13 branches in Piraeus, Athens, Thessaloniki and Chania. In 2018, the company benefited from the largest redevelopment in recent decades – amounting to €250 million – in the area of Ag. Dionysi in Piraeus and has since been housed in 3 renovated buildings, formerly owned by the tobacco company “Papastratos”, while it shares another building with “AlphaBank”.
A modern environment of labour overexploitation
The company’s upward trend and its gigantic profits are due exclusively to the overexploitation of the thousands of proletarians who work every day under intensive conditions – with successive customer service calls that do not stop until the 30-minute break they are entitled to per day – with rolling hours and work on weekends and holidays – with the daily stress of performance evaluations, which will theoretically determine the renewal of their contract, since the company follows the practice of 3-month, 6-month or annual individual contracts, through intermediary agencies for hiring workers, thus evading its legal obligation to permanently hire long-term workers. This is gross injustice to workers, as it does not recognise their length of service, and therefore they cannot increase their wages and improve their working conditions, but rather repeat the cycle of endless precariousness all over again. While the company’s shareholders are sharing €30 million in dividends between them, the majority of workers are working for €850/month, which is not enough to cover their food, bills and housing needs, since prices have soared and are continuously increasing in recent years. . Raises are minimal and meagre, and most of the time they are given in the form vouchers.
Why does it make sense to stand with the TP campaigners?
The workers at TP and the other major call centers in the country (FoundEver, WebHelp, Cosmote-evalue) where similar working conditions prevail, started a cycle of struggles in February 2024 with mass strikes and created grassroots business unions (at TP and WebHelp) with hundreds of members. The spark was ignited by the Tunisian colleagues who, among other things, face the “special purpose visa” regime, i.e. they risk deportation if they do not have an active employment contract with a call centre because they are citizens of a non-EU country. Today the majority of the people that were part of the struggle and some members of the Board of the SETEP union are facing the vindictive layoffs of the company, which proves that the criterion for renewing contracts is not performance but discipline and submission. Based on all of the above we therefore say that it makes sense to stand by them because: Based on all of the above we therefore say that it is worth standing by them because:
- Their struggle brings to the surface the dispossession of living labour for profit as a fundamental process of reproduction of capitalist society. The imposition of exploitative relations is mystified and concealed by the bosses and governments. The bosses project the image of “modern and inclusive” workplaces and governments normalize the rhetoric of “national development” as the driving force of society, proclaiming TP-like enterprises as the paradigm. Their aim is to crystallize the declining competitiveness of working class interests vis-à-vis their bosses. The struggle at TP illuminates the material reality behind the narratives, the reality experienced by those of us who work 8, 10 and 13 hours a day in the name of making the bosses rich, seeing our working conditions deteriorate through successive anti-labour bills that extend working hours, restrict trade union rights and reinforce precariousness.
- Their struggle is a new example of organising workers in the service sector under remote working conditions. TP workers work mostly from home (without the provision of basic means such as a chair, desk, covering the energy costs of the shift, etc.) but they have managed to overcome fragmentation and isolation and come together to turn their common interests into discourse and actions.
- Their struggle proves in practice that the exploited have common interests regardless of race, gender or religion. In the last year, TP workers have created a multi-ethnic community with the aim of improving of their class position, which is of particular value at a time when militarism and nationalism are gaining ground in European societies.
- Their demand for the signing of a Collective Labour Agreement opens the way for collective bargaining in other private companies. The CBA is a common regulation of the working conditions and wages of the employees of a company and can balance the wage gaps and individualised working experience as a whole, relieving the many, thus strengthening our class position.
HANDS OFF THE SETEP
TAKE BACK THE RETALIATORY LAYOFFS
SIGNING OF THE COLLECTIVE LABOUR AGREEMENTS AND WAGE INCREASES NOW
SOLIDARITY WITH THE TELEPERFORMANCE STRIKERS
KTA – MOVEMENTS FOR CLASS AUTONOMY