Former and current employees of a local call centre are crying foul over what they claim is unfair treatment by their employer. The employees, who spoke to the STAR on condition of anonymity, allege the company is exploiting them by manipulating their working hours, consequently impacting their wages. The employees say they normally worked a 40-hour week, eight hour shifts daily. However, they allege various methods are used to deduct time from their hours worked.
“Wrap-time”, they explained, is the time used immediately after a call to enter the details of that call into the system. Once entered, the call is then saved, and they are then able to take another call. However, the time taken to complete this process is excluded from their working hours.
The next issue revolves around the computer system employed. They said that on certain days, including when business is slow and there are fewer incoming calls, the system suddenly crashes. Although the workers have no control over whether the system works or not, they are not paid when it’s down. Another method of manipulating time, they said, centres on when an error message occasionally pops up on their screen while dealing with calls. The system freezes while the message is on-screen.
Then there’s the issue of bathroom breaks. During that time, the system is paused and calls cannot be taken. They said time is also unpaid. One employee said that on some occasions when no breaks were taken, there were still deductions. A worker complained: “Sometimes I give my whole eight hours for the day and when I look at my time card, it has break times I know I didn’t take, and wrap-time I know I didn’t have. Sometimes they just come out from nowhere.”
Said another: “There are certain days I have to force myself to stay seated and don’t take any bathroom breaks. Sometimes I have no choice but to put the customer on hold as I rush to the bathroom.”
The workers are not represented by a union. Attempts at reaching the business for comment proved futile. The Labour Department’s Dan Darrion told the STAR his office could not comment on whether a complaint has been made against any business. However, he explained that it would be contrary to labour laws for any business to operate in the way complained about. He promised nevertheless that his department will look into the matter. –
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