News

With empty shopping baskets in hand, Teleperformance employees are calling to CEO Van Liemt for their bonus this week. A large proportion of all 3,400 (former) employees have been entitled to an annual bonus of 75 euros since 2012 - but have not received it. The request for payment has been rejected several times. They are claiming their money this week through a surprise action.

The extra 75 euros was included in the collective labour agreement in 2012. According to the CLA, anyone who works for a call centre for a full calendar year is entitled to this bonus. The FNV calculated that the largest call centre company in the Netherlands, with major customers such as Bol.com and Vodafone, had withheld almost 93,000 euros.

Shopping bonus

“Some employees are owed as much as 375 euros. This shopping bonus will enhance our minimum wages significantly. That's why we started a petition last month to collect our bonus,” explains Emil, junior executive.

Good impression

In particular, the largest call centre group, Teleperformance, does little to comply with this sector-wide agreement. FNV director Elly Heemskerk explains why: "CEO Van Liemt uses the bonus pot to pay for a staff party. That way he can look generous while spending his staff's money. That's neither generous nor ethical.”

Top salaries

The top echelons of Teleperformance look after themselves much better than after the staff who carry out the work. In 2017, the three Dutch board members, including Van Liemt, distributed 789,750 euros and 526,000 euros in loans. The international CEO of Teleperformance, Daniel Julien, has made almost four million euros (salary: 2.3 million euros, bonus: 1.3 million euros. Source: Annual Report 2017).

Tax Gifts

In the period in which the employee bonus applied (2013-2018), Teleperformance requested and received nearly 10 million euros in subsidies and tax breaks from the Dutch public purse. Since 2018, Teleperformance has received a subsidy of between 1.00 and 0.50 euros on the minimum hourly wages (LIV subsidy).