A-Infos (en) Germany, Bochum, ISI Marketing tries to make workers shut up!

[David Brand <get_easy_now@yahoo.com>]

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      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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15.05.01 (text in english)

ISI Marketing tries to make workers shut up!

ISI Marketing (Wasserstrasse 219, 44799
Bochum/Germany) is a telephone-marketing company with
call centres in Bochum, Essen and Duesseldorf (all in
Germany). The management tries to stop the publication
of a leaflet on the lousy working conditions at ISI.
It has got a court injunction from Landgericht Bochum
against the internet provider www.free.de which owns
the server where the leaflet is published.  According
to the injunction the provider "is not allowed to call
the company 'lousy sweatshop' (miese Bude) and the
jobs 'shitty jobs' (Scheissjobs)". A threatened fine
of 500.000 deutschmarks and possible legal costs have
forced the deletion of the leaflet from the server
respectively the blackening of some comments on ISI.

The leaflet is based on the experiences of
ISI-workers. It was published on a website
(www.free.de/prol-position) that functions as an
instrument of self-organising of workers in call
centres and elsewhere. The reports on the conditions
in various work-places, reports on strikes from other
parts of the world and leaflets should support the
discussion among the exploited. The aim of the attempt
of censorship by ISI is to prevent exactly that.

The conditions at ISI - unpaid training sessions, low
basic wage and uncertain bonuses, cuts off bonuses in
the case of illness (see the leaflet below) - are no
exception. Weather we work in call centres, behind a
bar or on conveyor belts, we are confronted with
similar problems.

This is not about just improving the conditions a bit.
The decisive question is how we can develop a new
strength and prevent the managers from pushing through
these conditions against us. They have the
unemployment on their side. They can count on a german
government that tries hard to force us into lousy jobs
(for instance through the planned combination of
unemployment benefit and social security payments, the
campaign against “lazy persons”...). And they can rely
on the unions apparatus that helps with the peaceful
deterioration of conditions (for instance through
collective agreements for temporary agencies or on
flexible working hours...).

So who will change things if not we ourselves, the
workers?! No union nor party will do that for us. We
have to develop a strength and power in order to fight
against the deterioration and change the situation
radically. Therefore, we need to make sure that
information on the different conditions of
exploitation and the struggles against it can
circulate freely. 
 
Forward this mail and put links on
www.free.de/prol-position!

Write and distribute reports on actions against
exploitation!

This is not an isolated case: momentarily there is an
attempt to censor the website www.linkeseite.de in
Germany. Prevent censorship!


Here is the leaflet on the situation at ISI Marketing:
-------------------------------

hotlines, leaflet for a better time, number on ISI
Marketing, April 2001


Working for free at ISI-marketing

My story is nothing special to moan about, it is an
everyday story. 

In one way or another millions share my fate, but I
don't read anything about it  in "Amica" [so called
"woman’s magazin"] or WAZ [local newspaper]. I have a
child and a stack of unpaid  bills, the paid break for
child’s education is over, my name is not Barbara
Becker: I need a job. Looking for a job is in itself
unpaid labour: the stress of continually checking the
ads in the job centre and running to job interviews.
Shit-jobs and refusals. Just another offer: telephone
operator 
wanted, about 22 DM/hour (before taxes), company will
care for your child during work-time.
Job interview at ISI-marketing. Many women work here.
The woman from the personnel department promises
beautiful things: weekends in the company owned BMW,
trips to Egypt etc. if you sell more stuff on the
phone than your fellow workers.  All they are trying
to do is to sweeten a shit job a bit which actually
looks like this:

* 22 DM/hour...what else are you dreaming about? The
basic wage is 12DM/hour (before taxes), the rest is
un-guaranteed bonus.
* For the first week "working for free" is on the
agenda: they make you a special offer of 12 hours
training and 28 hours actual work on the phone for
free. You do not have to pay, they do not pay you. 
* During this period you are working without a
contract: you will only get one if you have made
enough money for the company. If you can not achieve
two thirds of the sale’s average you will not get a
contract, you will have worked for nothing.
* Make up for the hours you wasted on sick leave by
working extra later, or get you a  wage cut: if you go
to work although you are ill the company will pay you
a so-called "sore throat-bonus". If you can not drag
yourself to work, the company will help to speed up
your recovery by making you work a little bit longer
to make up for your lost hours or by cutting your
already gained bonus.
* Working before work starts: necessary things you
need to do for your work before the official work-time
begins. If you have a call that runs over into the
break, your break-time will be shortened.

After 25 hours "working for free" on the phone without
the guarantee of getting a contract afterwards, I was
fed up with it. I know that nothing is for free and
that paradise is waiting for the poor and industrious,
but there IS a limit god damn it! Everyone who applied
for the job at the same time as me packed it in before
getting a work-contract. Perhaps we could have
resisted these shitty conditions. Perhaps together we
could have forced them to pay us the 40 hours work,
pay us more money instead of un-guaranteed bonus, give
us contracts right from the start...but we didn't try.
We only knew each other for a short time, and had just
few occasions to talk the workers who already had
contracts, we were scared of getting into trouble. Now
the search for a job  continues for everyone on  their
own. If we are lucky we will find something better,
although that is pretty unlikely...

I am not after "revenge".  ISI-marketing is just doing
what other companies do: they use our situation for
further deterioration of the work-conditions. They
make us work harder for less money because they are
quiet sure that we "unprivileged" on the labour-market
(older women, mothers, "unskilled", "immigrants") will
hardly get anything better. By using the bonus-system
they lower our wage and put the risk of offering an
unsaleable product onto us. They extend the unpaid
labour-time by calling the work "training" and
"test-work" etc. They feel sure that we will not
resist against these attacks because of all the unpaid
bills, the office for immigration or other
administrations in our back.

I know that many people are in a similar situation to
me. I know that many blame themselves for not getting
a better job or no job at all. Although I am not
working for ISI anymore: I have written down this
story because I will not put up with this bull-shit
alone and in silence any longer. At a certain point
there is no point in individual "struggle for
survival" anymore and the hope for a better job turns
out to be an illusion. What is going on at ISI is no
exception and it is not just bothering those who work
there. By enforcing crap work-conditions in one
company or region the employers put pressure on all
the other workers, too. Therefore we have to find ways
to fight back together. When we were working as
"applicants" it would have helped us if the
"permanents" had made a step towards us and told us
how things are at ISI. Perhaps it would have built up
enough confidence in each other to attack the
black-mailing "contract for average sales-rate". We
also noticed that there is practically no
communication between workers from the different ISI
call centres in this region (Essen, Bochum, Krefeld,
Duesseldorf etc.). The bosses will use this isolation
to play us off against each other, so we are
distributing this leaflet in Essen, Bochum and
Duesseldorf.

There are several ways to fight back: if they do not
pay us the "training", breaks etc. all go on sick
leave together. If they threaten us with wage-cuts we
can show them who is actually phoning in the money by
working slowly or not at all.
If they pay us shit we gonna pay them back!

[hotlines-presentation]
We work in call centers and elsewhere and produce a
series of leaflets. That way we want to support and
bring forward the discussion among workers. We need to
stand up together against work stress and the
constraint to work. We can only do that by
self-organizing and by finding ways - together with
other workers - to react against management measures
and to push through our own interests. Our strength
lies in the fact that we can quickly agree with other
workers on - for instance - refusing overtime,
ignoring boss's orders or reducing the call-rythm.
Without the boss being prepared and without the
mediation or control of works councils (german:
Betriebsrat) or unions. If we develope that strength
and use it, that can be a step towards the overcoming
of wage slavery altogether.
All hotlines-leaflets are published - together with
more information and contributions - on the website:
www.free.de/prol-position


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