Hope to despair: the experience of organizing Indian call centre employees

Abstract

The rapid growth of India's IT Enabled Service-Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) sector has drawn the attention of several researchers whose foci have spanned varied aspects. This paper analyses whether UNITES really lived up to its reputation of being a torch bearer in organizing call centre employees and how its strategies were influenced by everyday work context of call centre employees and their socially constructed identity of being professional. The analysis is based on extensive fieldwork over a period of 8 years and in-depth interviews with union officials and more than 200 employees working in the ITES-BPO sector though this article focuses on call centre employees.