What’s it like at Pell and Bales?

– What work is done at P+B?

Pell and Bales run a call centre that mainly, although not exclusively, makes calls on behalf of Not-For-Profit organisations. In the main, we raise funds on the telephone for charities, although P&B have been known to have contracts with commercial clients. Although P&B have a number of competitors, if you have been called by a charity, it is most likely that the call came from a Pell and Bales employee.
– What are working conditions like?

Pressure seems to dominate. Like an other call centre or contact centre – every day workers at Pell and Bales (commonly referred to as callers) are expected to meet targets: there are targets for pledges (usually a Paperless Direct Debit, where the caller has not only got agreement for a supporter to help with a regular donation, they have got obtained their bank details so that the gift has been set up straight away), there are also average value targets, targets on contacts (ie- potential donors / supporters that have said either yes or no). Calls are listened in to by Campaign Managers and coaches (and at times the clients) so it can feel like someone’s breathing down your neck. The whole workplace seems to be ruled by numbers, have you got enough PDDs, have you got enough contacts, have you made enough dial attempts, is the average value high enough? A more recent stick to beat us with has been “wrap/ not available” more commonly known as “unproductive time”. The technology now adds up how long you are not calling so you’re effectively being tracked for time spent in the toilet, getting a coffee, taking a breath between calls,etc. This is unnecessary – managers could always tell if you were skiving by the amount of contacts and dial attempts you make. At first, managers would be telling people that they couldn’t go above 25%, then it was 20% and now they have stated that callers should not have no more than 15% “wrap/ not available”. This causes problems on difficult campaigns where there are lots of “hard nos”, people slamming the phone down on callers, etc. Managers will tell callers that they need to keep the numbers of contacts down but then it becomes impossible to keep down “wrap/ not available” at the same time.

Account managers are obviously harsh on the campaign managers about all these scores and this pressure and stress is transferred to the callers.

If you are not meeting the desired targets, you can be put on “performance management”, where they will monitor you for a number of shifts which could result in a disciplinary for incapability.

As most callers are on flexible or zero hours contracts, another alternative for them is to just cut your hours.

If you are on probation (and in most cases an agency worker, they won’t even bother with that, they’ll just sack you if they feel that you won’t make the grade).

There are petty rules in the call centre – managers have a conduct-tracker for which they note down infringements of such rules as not having coats on the back of chairs, eating in the call centre, reading non-campaign related material whilst calling, not sitting in the correct area for the campaign. Although this will depend on who your manager is and whether you get on with them.

Three mentions on a conduct-tracker and you are on a disciplinary.

Callers are also appraised every 6 months and whether they go up to the next level and get a pay rise will depend on results and mostly the quality of the calls. This is a major issue that the union has been taking up, as it’s a system that lacks consistency. It can be very difficult to get a pay increase this way if you have mostly been on difficult and very “cold” campaigns. There has also been a lack of consistency in how different calls are scored – and this affects callers pay.
– What level of organisation is there?

Pell and Bales have 5 sites, the one in Bedford and the two in Central London have been going for some time. A call centre was opened in Kingston in 2007 and another in Brighton was opened in 2008.

In Bedford, after a vigorous campaign, the GPMU won recognition around 8 or 9 years ago, the union was de-recognised quite soon after.

In London, at our peak, the CWU had 120 members of the union late last year. With the high turnover (which until recently was 50 new callers a month), this has now gone down to just over 90, which mainly consists of callers, but many of the campaign managers and coaches have also been won to joining the union and there are a few members in the back office.

This is still quite a feat, there had been some attempts to build a union in Pell and Bales in London, but it was not until 2006 that there was a more earnest and sustained campaign.

On many occasions, we have been able to show that we can defend members adequately at disciplinary and grievance hearings.

In June 2008, Pell and Bales members set up its own constituency section of the 4000-strong CWU Capital branch, having our own section committee. The problem of working in a place with a high turnover and a pressurised environment meant that the Vice-Chair and 3 of the committee members have since left the company.

There have been meetings between CWU national and local officials and the Chief Executive, but we have yet to win union recognition, which has made it harder to operate as a structured force in the workplace.

We have monthly meetings and have a decent core of activists, but this needs to be built on and given more structure.

– What disputes have there been?

In London, the first union campaign in 2006 we ran was over pay. We were aware that it was a long-term goal, but it could not be ignored that callers in Bedford were better paid than callers in London since pay was cut for new entrants in 2004. We were also worse off than other workers in other Not-For-Profit call centres, despite Pell and Bales being the most successful. There were also workers paid below the London Living Wage. We had a petition that was successful and drew people into the union, a film showing introduced by director Ken Loach, a Pay Rise party, badge wearing days.

In 2008, management awarded the first pay increases to London callers in 6 years. Apart from workers on probation and workers that joined before the pay cut in 2004, all rates were increased by £1 per hour. This meant that for the vast majority, the London Living Wage of £7.45 had been achieved and the increases amounted to 15% at most.

Following that, the newly-elected Section Secretary Pat Carmody was dismissed for an article for a four sentence article reporting a meeting to defend a colleague who had been suspended (and later sacked).

This was seen as an attack on the union.

Emergency meetings in his defence drew more than 30 Pell and Bales workers. Protests involving Pell and Bales workers and workers from other unions such as Unite members at Shelter and other charities, RMT, PCS and UCU members were called at his hearings.

An Early Day Motion in supporting Pat and the right to organise was signed by more than 40 MPs and he was re-instated on appeal.

The union also led a campaign that won the re-instatement of another union activist earlier this year. More recently, we were involved in a campaign to defend the jobs of callers seconded to coaching and management positions, who were given a week’s notice that those secondments would end and that they would have to reapply for their old jobs on fixed hours and worsened pay and conditions. Management acted very swiftly and decisively and caused much resentment and confusion, but our response was not sufficient to beat this particular attack back, but lessons have been learnt to prepare workers for further attacks.

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– What does this show for other workers/what is its importance?

Significantly, the relative and continuing success of the union campaign at Pell and Bales shows that contrary to popular belief, including the trade union movement, it is possible to organise young casual workers on flexible hours with little or no tradition.

A core of activists have sought to make the union relevant to people and have always worked to involve more people.

The bread-and-butter issues that we campaign around come from callers and we meet and discuss how we campaign around each issue.

We have also encouraged a vision that is wider than just the call-centre itself.

The film showing of Bread and Roses with Ken Loach created a wider debate about the role of trade unions.

We hosted a well-attended meeting in 2007 with other trade union activists from the local area to discuss the union’s link with the Labour Party.

We raised money and leafleted for the Love Music Hate Racism carnival in 2008.

This year, we have had guest speakers from the campaign to defend a sacked union activist who was involved in the Justice for Cleaners campaign at SOAS and the occupation by Unite members at Visteon in Enfield.

We have been imaginative in the way that we have sought to win people to the union, whilst not forgetting that the main task is that we involve workers in getting organised to improve the quality of their working lives.