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Cooperation between CFDT and UGTT (Tunisian General Labour Union) in the call centre sector is continuing and is starting to bear fruit.

At the beginning of October 2008, a CFDT delegation (composed of a representative of the national centre, the national secretary of 3C federation who is responsible for the call centre sector and international affairs, a representative of the Greater Paris service providers’ union and a CFDT shop steward) left for Tunis to work out the objectives and implementation modalities for this partnership. It met a team from the local companies who were both enthusiastic and attentive.

Historical background

At the beginning of the project, a cooperation agreement was signed between CFDT and UGTT in June 2006. As a result of this, a training programme was set up for a group of young developers from the Ben Arous region around Tunis. As a result of this, in November 2007, UGTT already had acquired 700 new members in the telephone call centres alone. Given that this is a growing sector in Tunisia, F3C CFDT had considered the possibility of a professional cooperation with UGTT, an initiative that was backed by the trade union national centre. As the purchasing policy adopted by the major French groups is putting downward pressure on prices, leading to the outsourcing and relocation of a percentage of the volume of calls, Tunisia has seen a strong increase in this sector of activity (8000 new jobs officially created), with many French companies now operating in the country. This development has also gone hand in hand with an increase in the number of non-declared jobs, where working conditions are appalling and do not even respect the low local standards.



A meeting of the minds and shared challenges

There are many issues at stake. For UGTT, the priorities include:

- being present in a very fast-growing sector which is contributing to the economic development of the country,

- establishing and sustaining trade unionism in the private sector by targeting groups of workers who are particularly important for Tunisia (young people and women),

- regulating the sector and creating rights and collective guarantees,

- building ties of solidarity in order to be able to put effective pressure on the decision-makers and the parent companies.

For CFDT, this kind of cooperation will help develop an alternative to the approach that has dictated policy so far, i.e. a head-on clash in reaction to any relocation of activities. This is also a way to force decision-makers and sub-contractors to face up to reality and to prove that they really mean it when they talk about corporate social responsibility. But above all, it has allowed us to develop a new form of solidarity between activists at home and abroad in order to fight for better quality jobs, both in Tunisia and in France.



Possible lines of actions and results already obtained

The partnership revolves around four principal actions:

- Networking trade union teams within the same company in France and Tunisia,

- Helping UGTT to establish a solid presence, coupled with union organising activities,

- Helping to negotiate collective agreements (sectoral, company-based)

- Creating a social label (CSR certification) in Tunisia and the Maghreb countries.

- One of our first actions aimed at bringing activists within the same company together. This is already beginning to bear fruit and confirms our conviction that it is easier to impose our demands if we are all pulling in the same direction. The exchanges that have taken place have allowed people to gain a better understanding of the realities in the different countries. They were also instrumental in the creation of a strike movement and the adoption of industrial action in Tunisia, and more than 1000 employees out of a total registered workforce of 8000 at Transcom, Teleperformance and Stream have now been unionised.

- Thanks to this success, UGTT is starting to get organised and has set up a sectoral committee for the call centres. Its main demand is for a sectoral collective agreement to regulate the activities of call centres in Tunisia. The aim is to ensure that facilities are provided for women workers and to put an end to situations where some call centre operators are expected to work as much as 48 hours!

- As far as F3C is concerned, corporate responsibility does not stop at France’s borders! In other words, relocations must be socially acceptable. That is why we demanded that all French companies who wished to obtain the CSR label for their the call centres should have to submit to an audit of their premises, including those located offshore, a demand which was accepted. A French company may be refused a CSR label if it offers poor working conditions on its sites abroad. This has shown us that our cooperation in this sector is yielding results.