Working the phones


Control and resistance in call centres


Jamie Woodcock, Pluto Press, 208 pages, £17.99


Imagine you work in an environment where your breaks are monitored, your performance is displayed on a big screen for all your colleagues to see, you aren’t even allowed to put your coat on the back of your chair and the management slogan of the moment is “Happy people sell, miserable bastards don’t”.


Welcome to the world of the UK call centre where over a million people work, and which has become synonymous with low pay and high stress, dictatorial supervisors and an almost total lack of union organisation.


Jamie Woodcock worked undercover in a call centre to gain insight into the everyday experiences for his PhD thesis. The book is drawn from his research which means that it tends a bit towards the academic audience. Still, it has much to offer the general reader.


We rarely get the insider’s view and Woodcock fills the book with examples of the petty restrictions, the isolation and alienation, and the surveillance and control which affects the well-being of the workers. 


As more and more jobs actively discourage workers from joining a union, there needs to be a serious discussion about winning back the right and the ability to organise to protect workers such as these. 


Reviews contributed by the Bookmarks socialist bookshop. 


Order online at https://bookmarksbookshop.co.uk