Agreement regulates flexibility in Sitel outsourced call centre

Employer and employee representatives at the VN Sitel call centre gathered at the end of April 1999 to evaluate a collective agreement that had been reached in early 1998. Both sides reconfirmed the main points of the agreement, which covers areas like flexible work rosters, night work and Sunday working.

The number of call centres is expanding rapidly in Belgium, especially outsourced call centres. Trade unions are generally absent in these centres and problems are often reported concerning working conditions and regulations. Flexibility in particular is a difficult question. Since call centre companies offer telephone services for other companies, they are required to satisfy the demands and needs of their customers. If that includes a round-the-clock help-desk service, the introduction of night work becomes inevitable. Moreover, the sector is known for many other forms of flexibility and rather poor working conditions.

However, management and employee representatives at NV Sitel Benelux concluded a collective agreement at the beginning of 1998 to regulate a number of aspects of employment conditions, and the main points of the agreement were evaluated reconfirmed by the parties in late April 1999. NV Sitel, a subsidiary of the US-based Sitel, is the market leader in Belgium in outsourced call centre services, and its Belgian operations employ about 400 people. On its World-Wide Web site, Sitel refers to this collective agreement with a certain pride as "unique for the call centre sector" in Belgium. The agreement describes extensively all the functions to which variable work rosters apply: tele-operator, telemarketer, help-desk agent, tele-operating dispatcher, "team coach" and supervisor.

The agreement outlines the permissible rosters and stipulates that variable schedules should be communicated to the employee at least five working days in advance and that changes may be allowed only by consensus between employer and employee. New forms of variable work rosters may be introduced only following agreement in the works council and between the parties to the collective agreement.

The agreement also limits Sunday work and night work. An employee may be obliged to work only 18 Sundays a year and has a right to two Sundays off each month.

Night work is permitted only for so-called "inbound-operations" (incoming phone calls). The maximum number of employees allowed to perform night work is 15% of the total number of employees. The possibility of night work must be mentioned in the initial employment contract. If not, then night work may be requested only on a voluntary basis.

Those falling under the flexible work rosters receive additional pay premia:

• 100% (and an additional recuperation hour) for Sundays and public holidays;

• 50% for Saturday work;

• 12.5% for work performed on weekdays between 18.00 and 22.00; and

• 25% for work performed on weekdays between 22.00 and 06.00.

Call centres systematically recruit many of their workers amongst students and "housewives" on the basis of temporary work and minor part-time contracts. The agreement specifies that less than three hours worked per day counts as a full three hours for the purposes of payment, and lays down that an additional premium must be paid if the upper limit of hours worked for certain part-time contracts is exceeded. Temporary contracts that exceed a three-month period under the same conditions will roll over into normal contracts.

Although the agreement can arguably be considerably improved in relation to certain issues, it may nevertheless serve as an example for the sector. A key problem from a trade union point of view remains the fact that in most call centres union representatives are not present - a situation typical of small and medium-sized enterprises. This often leads to abuse and poor working conditions, it is claimed. Unions are pleading for a system of voluntary self-regulation in the sector that would exclude certain practices and "cowboy" operators. For the time being, however, it appears that most employers are not answering the call.