The Indian media and business elite never tire of enthusing over India’s growing role as an IT and Business-Processing Outsourcer (BPO) to the world. Yet not much attention is paid to the working conditions in the Indian BPO sector. Little inspection would show the high levels of labour exploitation in the industry—including constant surveillance, long hours, health problems and burnouts. Any mention of exploitation in BPO’s provokes a hostile reaction from Indian business community, highlighting the economic and political reliance of India’s ruling elite on the success of the BPO sector.
Question is WHY? Is the wellbeing of Indian youth not important enough?
The comments by Pramod Bhasin, the CEO of the outsourcing provider Genpact was outrageous. He told the Financial Express: “The world is praising the Indian IT Industry... But we are bent on killing the golden goose. I am aghast any findings of workplace exploitation.”
Studies reveal that BPO employees are under constant stress because of their workload, competitive pressures and surveillance. Workers are monitored for every single breath they take in office. Closed circuit cameras and electronic timers monitor the time staff are away from their desk, including in the loo. The high targets set by the management not only unrealistic but unattainable without “burn out”. Even worse the hours are regimented. Adding to the stress, management creates an environment of competition by assessing staff performance against the figures of the “good performers”.
Further, studies reveal that the BPO industry seeks a “productively docile” workforce that has no job security or rights. The majority of its staff is considered “non-core” and dispensable. In some BPO’s, Codes of Conduct discourage employees from discussing their salaries with peers and they are subject to disciplinary actions for breaching the code. A number of states in India have exempted outsourcing companies from the Industrial Disputes Act, which provides, amongst other things, for unfair dismissal rights.
The role of human resource staff in the BPO’s is that of “camouflaging work as fun” through the use of things such as popcorn booths and ping-pong tables. Management gives their BPO staff titles such as Associate, Call Centre Executive and Customer Care Executive in an attempt to portray the positions as being high level and privileged. However, the pay and hype surrounding the jobs mask the fact that there is almost no career development in the industry. Thus, most of these youngsters are in fact burning out their formative years as ‘cyber coolies’.
Other than reports on health problems such as nervousness, chronic fatigue, body ache, insomnia, nausea, anxiety, restlessness, irritability and depression due to odd working hours and stress, a study also showed that BPO’s, especially shift work, seriously impinged social life. It said “90 per cent of the respondents did not balance work and family life. The respondents had no social life or interaction with people in the family.”
The various studies conducted on these aspects are severely backlashed:
The Financial Express editorialised against such study. It once accused the authors of being “divorced from reality”. With barely a mention of the contents of the study, it denounced it as “another ‘bleeding heart’ report that only those living in privileged institutes can afford to indulge in.” It went on to say that some “minimal creature comforts” are acceptable but any “misguided attempt to push up costs” by improving working conditions would lead to the loss of BPO jobs.
Likewise, the ruling elite fear any information emerging about the industry which could cause workers to organise against exploitation in the industry. Far from workers in the BPO sector being free to organise and join unions as stated by Nasscom, several states, including the West Bengal government, have declared the IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) sector as “public utilities”, making it much more difficult for workers to gain the legal right to strike and easier for the government to declare industrial action illegal. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the chief minister of West Bengal and a Communist Party of India (Marxist) Politbureau member has promised to crack down on any strikes in the IT and ITES sector. More importantly, the hype surrounding the growth of the outsourcing sector is seen as politically important for winning support from a section of the Indian population for the program of privatisation and the integration of India into the global economy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) 2004 election campaign slogan of “India Shining”, particularly hailed the successes of the outsourcing sector, and featured the smiling faces of contented middle class Indians. In a shock result for the Indian ruling class, however, the electorate rejected the BJP and its claim that India was prospering. This partially explains the nervousness of the political and media establishment about a discussion of the exploitation of labour in the BPO sector. The majority of the population is already hostile to the program of privatisation and opening up India as a cheap labour platform for transnational capital. The fear is that even those who are employed in the BPO sector—the alleged beneficiaries of the agenda implemented by all ruling parties—are becoming disillusioned.
Conclusion:
Although the IT and BPO sector brought the Indian people a better standard of living, it has resulted in public-sector job cuts, destruction of whole industries, and cuts to food and fuel subsidies, which have been devastating to rural areas, the poor and large sections of the working class. Young employees need to grow beyond their “American dream”. They need to unite for the future of the country… for their own wellbeing. As someone rightly said “Suppress the young and the young will always rebel. History has seen it and proven it.” This is a wake up call for all those BPO’s which indulge in any kind of workplace exploitations. It’s an either-or situation… Either stop the exploitation or lose the “golden goose”.
5 years ago
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