<nettime> No workers union in the ninetees

["andacaci@dds.nl" <andacaci@dds.nl>]

Again i will take you to the wonderfull world of........Direct Marketing.
This time it will not be about the victims waiting at home to be terrorised for
the third time this week, but we will talk about the caller, the terrorist. In
these companies, same as in most other places you can place the workers in
three different places. On top you have the Boss(es), the dictators, cashing in.
Then the people handing out the different duties. On the third place the
followers, the slaves......

Because slaves they are. The world of  direct marketing is one of the last
remaining jobs in Holland not to be counted as an official job, if 
you can call it that. The workers have no rights at all. People can 
get fired at anytime and other steps to get your personel really in the
mood for calling are taken if necassery as well.

What can and will happen if you don't do the job right (read:if you don't make
enough appointments to sell the product)?

Let's start at the beginning. The selection. There is no selection. When this
line of bussines started the selection came out of almost, only white, young
students.  On purpose? fact is that in most cases until 1,5 year ago 75% was
white with an average age from 17! The rate of people wanting to do this work
was dropping.  The solution was found in schools. Posters were hanged, flyers
were giving out and people with other color of skin came in, becoming in even
with the whites.  When a girl that was having a youth debate on the local
amsterdam television told about this strange fact she was not seen at her work
again.Coinsedence?

Every group of callers has got their own supervisor. He's around 23 or around
this age. This is the person that tells what to do that means where to call.
But this is not all. They, togheter with the other supervisors, can tell
someone to take a hike. On what grounds will this happen........

Some of the following happens with no acceptions.
A girl heard some sexual scripts thrown at het and didn't take this lightly.
The supervisor told her he would like to see her in lingerie. When she screamed
at him he got mad and told another supervisor there was an arguiment.
A week later she did not come to work......
This was the worsest case. 
In other cases you get an hour less payment or being to loud.
Think of what this means. Why does nobody react?
propably because it's to hard to get evidence.Yes the ninetees is still
in hands of the ones who want the most money. 
And prove that it should be changed is still hard to get

greetings,
robert
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