Out for Three Days

Do not look for me, I probably won't be able to post from tomorrow to Saturday, since *I* will be in Wien. ^_^ Yes, yes, yes, the city of Mozart, Freud and Maria-Theresia. What will I do? *looks around* Well, nobody seems to know the answer, why would I? Hehehe... I'll have fun and do whatever pleases me when it pleases me. I want Wien all for my own.

...

In the Holidays, it seems there are only a few news, or at least a few journalists working. Perhaps it's unfair for me, who have been almost three weeks not working (one week on sick days and soon to fulfil two-and-a-half on vacations), to expect others to work all the time. Hey, I'm home, I want my news! We peopel can be so unconsiderated to one another. So, I guess journalists are entitled to take some vacations for their own purposes. So, There's so little of the Washington Post, I barely receive a section per day instead of my issue full paper and the separated fuller sections of Politics and Technology. I actually expected no news to comment, but then again, CNN don't stop. The article that caught my attention is this piece titled: "India's Outsourcing Industry Takes Toll on Workforce". I don't link it since I have no idea if you can follow the link or not. Most likely you can't since it's an e-mail encoded site.

Since it has to do with "work", "labor", I was insterested. Hey, I'm a Development Economist after all, and I'm passionate about what I learned. As I opened the article, I realized it is about the situation in the call centers in India. It names cases in IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard and Intel among others. The article basically says that though this jobs pay people more than what they could ordinarily earn, it's causing several problems to the health and mental and emotional health of the people. Weight disorders, heart disease, sleep disorders and so on. Their trget labor force is composed by people between 20 and 30, I guess, they project themselves as a "temporary job" place. Then again, due to the harsh conditions, regardless to the good payment, the job churn rate must be quite high.

I have friends and acquintances working in Costa Rica in this industry, and it honestly concerns me. It's also depressing to see how even Universities have opened the "Call Center Officer" fac. I don't understand why people can't see this is going the very wrong way. Okay, there are people who have worked a lifetime as call center operators (mostly at telecommunication enterprises... like giving information and so), but that can't be compared with what goes on today. What I see is a modern version of the same horrors described by Karl Marx in his Masterpiece "Das Kapital": the poor, starved, young worker is squeezed for the maximum profit: little payment, long hours of hard, demanding work. If we were horrified at tales of six year-old kids dying in the mines, and twenty-year-old girls literaly worked to death in embriodery shops, or at seamstresses, then why can't we see how our youth is robbed of their health and possibility to grow by this companies. How many of them can use the money they earn to further educate themselves and find a better job?

Though I preech that the economics are merely eficient, and leave the social problems to others, it's not our place (as economists) to solve the world, I'm sorry to tell this enterprises, that the social part is needed to keep our laborforce healthy and productive for years to come. Kill them before they can get their pensions is not a viable solution. Squeezing them and making them work sick and depressed is not a productive, eficient solution, and though the economics can separate themselves from the social part at the theoretical level (that's what the Ceteris Paribus is for), at the practical level they can't. Furthermore, we economists still float several levels above the ground and society, since we are still the macro planners, but the enterprise, which is IN the society, must be careful and conscient about the society.

Call centers around the world should consider the social and health factor of their employees and change their politics.

1. Shorter worktimes (make it a part-time job for everybody! Do not allow full-timers due to health considerations, like the health of the ear.)
2. Respect natural working hours as well as holidays and the native customs and habits.
3. Promote the social interaction of the employees as well as the interaction of the enterprise with the environment and the society.
4. Promote the further education of the employees

Familiy, friends and self. Health and comfort. Enterprises work with people, and if they should care for the people at least as much as they care for the machinery and equipment... and actually far more.