This essay is a critique of the article an assembly line by Phil Taylor and Peter Bain and will attempt

to give the readers an insight to the readers about what a call center worker does, the working conditions in a call center, the reasons for the rapid growth of this business and the reasons why this receives critical attention from the media and academicians. Call center employ more than 2.3% of UK workforce according to the authoritative survey by the end of year 2002, justifying its inclusion in myriad of newspapers and magazines. (Data monitor 1998). The authors portray call centers with the metaphor of white collar sweat shops or dark satanic mills because of high dependency on technologies which leave the employees with little or no discretion at work. In the article, authors aim to depict a true image of labor process and work culture which is seeped with surveillance techniques that combine manual as well as technology tools (IDS, 1997). The columnists with conviction raised their voice over impact of surveillance which creates a total managerial control. Academicians have highlighted the plight of the call center workers through empirical research. Industry managers working in the domain are aware of this scenario. But not much has changed. The reason for this is because of the unique nature of the work done. Phil Taylor and Peter Bain carried out a research at call centers in Scotland over 3 years between 1996 and 1998 to analyze the reality of call center and employee issues related to it. Banking and Financial Institutions (BFSI) institutions in UK were the first to adopt this business model because the cost of employing labor in cities like London was eating into their profitability and they were looking to companies who could provide solutions. They do this by locating their call center in a country where overhead costs are least, labor costs are low, labor laws are still to evolve yet there is abundance in labor that are willing to opt for this kind of mundane job. Their strengths are in leveraging on the improved IT that is available today which can offer real time solutions. Workers with a dedicated internet connection and a STD / ISD telephone line make in bound or outbound calls. This would mean that optimizing the single resource that is employed by the industry which is the workers. This business model became a success which was quickly accepted by countries across the developed world. The study report indicates that call center work is a combination of emotional work and extreme coordination of mind and feelings (Hoschild, 1983). The authors submit that managers have also made the work more process oriented through scripting each job aspect for ease and standardization. The emotional aspect of the work requires the workers to continuously to smile and put up with the extreme work demands of the customers and the managers. Most of the work is monotonous, repetitive, uninteresting and bound to daily targets. At times the work also involved taking the ire of the irked customer who would be abusive and offensive. Tactical strategies like removing the scripting portion and reducing surveillance to control attrition has not had the desired effect. These measures have come back into force.

The study brings to light a few interesting aspects of the modern organization and the way in which it functions. The so-called white collared workers of the new age work place are not any better than prison inmates where they are watched and monitored every second of their work duration. The difference in the surveillance between the two situations is that in prison it is done with the intent of providing corrective action to the inmates while in the call centers the intent is to increase productivity of the unit. The same can be seen the Panoptican prisons design layout given by Jeremy Bentham (Bentham, 1971).The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. He described the Panoptican as a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example. The term, its idea, and its underlying purpose all of these correspond with forms of surveillance. The same can be seen in Richard Edward's (1979) model who has given the personal, technical and bureaucratic control which is embedded in the organizational structure. The report by Fernie and Metcalf states that most employees set their targets with joint union discussions as they fall prey to supervisors power that delivers perfect supervision. Analysis of data captured through structured questions asked in a telephonic survey in Scotland in the year 1997. This research was successful in covering more than 50% of the call centers located in Scotland. Post the survey, the researchers also met the managers and a few sample respondents from each call center to garner more information through face to face focused discussion. Consumer and subscriber products were the next industry that made use of call centers for their business. All the call centers had grown from the time they had entered business. Their growth was quick which could be attributed to their operational efficiency and the strategy of managing costs that call centers normally adopted. Even though the focus of operations was on managing and reducing costs, call centers were notorious for increasing their surveillance techniques both manual and employing technology. The article defines complexity of operators who need to think through the response instantly while continually scanning the VDU screen and manipulating the keyboard whereas on the other hand the supervisors who are sitting remote at another work station can monitor the number of calls that have been attended. Thus such immense pressure also provokes a response from the employees as they devise very ingenious and deviant methods to clock improved performance to get higher incentives. Investigation of call centers also revealed the fact that few employees form social closure for purpose of collective bargaining regarding matters related to working con dictions, pay and perks. Managers were forced to listen to these groups else face a situation of emeses leave during peak work and when staff is short. Numerous studies over the years have concluded that the employees in call centers live a miserable life and not unlike that of a captive or a hostage. They are prone to high fatigue levels because of extreme work load which thus takes a heavy toll on the health and mental strength of the employees in the form of stress, tonsil infection, sleep deprivation, sexual harassment and
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even back problems due to long working hours. This has led to the management revolutionizing labor processes and employment practice options by changing patterns of job design which further promotes cultural management and worker subjectivity eliminating the feeling of alienation among the workers. With the aid of such options one can witness an astonishing increase in the call centers industry. The academic study shows over 30 % labor turnover in call centers clearly demonstrating the job pressure on employees plus the nature of highly competitive environment among which innumerable call centers exist. Thus the authors have also discussed certain measures adopted by managers in the form of offering more flexibility and advancing team work strategy to win over these problems. Mature management will also encourage setting up of formal employee redress mechanisms to ensure that there is no exploitation of labor under the garb of surveillance thus multiplying overall productivity levels. We must acknowledge the amount of contribution to literature that has come from these authors. The fact that the authors have not relied on existing literature and have collected data from primary research to test the existing evidence is a good enough reason for readers to take this article seriously. Reading the report gives an indication that the authors did not do this research for the sake of bringing out just another publication the interest is evident from the fact that most of the text that has been submitted is based on factual evidence. Therefore the claim by the authors that all is not good in call centers is justified. After carefully scrutinizing the essay we arrive at the conclusion that work of authors was truly incontestable as they rightly pointed out the job or pay in call centers was below the satisfactory levels when compared with other job opportunities hence explaining the high attrition rate. The Taylorism approach is visible in call centers which not only provides an evidence that call centers are actually a very scientific work place that embraces technology and managerial innovativeness but also leaves employees with no discretion hence using Panoptican prison as its convincing metaphor. The study also reveals the surprising change of strategy to more flexible attitude by managers as they understand the vitality of Relationship Management which is also the need of the hour for retaining both loyal customers and employees. There is also a downturn in the essay as author fails to comment upon actual influence that is responsible for coming up with improvements in the work at call centers the government, social services, academicians and researchers, local communities.

References BIFU (1996), Dialling the future, Phone banking and insurance London, BIFU BIFU (1997), Occupational voice less London, BIFU Fernie S (1998), Hanging on the telephone, Centerpiece, London School of Economics Fernie S and Metcalfe (1997), Not hanging on the telephone : Payment systems in the new sweatshops, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics Grint K. (2005) Sociology of work, 3rd ed., Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Hochschild, AR, (1983), The managed Heart, Berkeley, University of California, US Incomes data services (1997), Pay and Condition in Call centers, London, IDS Mckinlay A. and Taylor P (1998), Focoult and the policies of prodcution, in Mckinlay A and Starkey, Focoult Management and Organization theory, London, Sage Taylor. P and Bain. P (1997), Call centers in Scotland, Glasgow, Scottish Enterprise Watson J. (2003) Sociology work and industry,4th ed. ,Routledge ,Milton Park.