Information Society Watch

October 14, 2006, Amandeep Sandhu, Economic and Political Weekly

This article argues that call centre employees do not want to be part of trade unions because they associate the latter with “blue-collar workers” and not with their own perceived upward mobility. Additionally, unionisation has failed because the new middle class– with its employment base in increasingly globalised private sector – that came into being in Indian since the post-liberalisation has benefited from the global integration of India’s economy. The new economic arangement has secured legitimacy from his class quite unlike the pre-liberalisation, where the old middle class was dependent on the public sector. Finally, the work schedules and the highly modernised self-contained work islands that call-centres employes inhabit encourage them to think of unions as unnecessary (Adapted from author).

Read full text