Hotline flooded with call centre complaints

Call centres employ 400,000 people in Britain

A hotline set up to investigate workplace harassment in Britain's call centres is currently receiving more than 400 calls a week.

More than 400,000 people work in call centres in Britain making it one of the fast growing industries in the country especially in areas of traditionally high unemployment.

It now employs more people than the steel, coal and car industries put together.

The TUC set up the hotline to address what it called the "sweatshop image" of call centres.

TUC general secretary John Monks said: "These figures show there are still too many centres using bullying tactics to pressurise and intimidate employees."

It has promised to investigate some of the worst complaints.

Call centres can be stressful places

One of the worst was from a call centre where staff were told the person who spent the most time in the toilet would be forced to wear a nappy.

The manager of the centre, which has not been identified, made staff sign a "toilet book" to check how long they spent there.

The incident was revealed by a woman who called the hotline last week.

Another call centre worker phoned to say staff had to put up their hands for permission to go to the toilet.

Workers also complained regularly that they did not have enough time to rest in between answering calls.

Decorations 'hazard'

One worker was only allowed three seconds between answering calls, while another was disciplined for allowing a six-second gap between calls.

Another said management would not allow Christmas decorations because they were a health and safety "hazard".

Mr Monks said the hotline suggested that some call centres were "openly flouting the law" but he acknowledged that other call centres were making better efforts to ensure good conditions prevailed for staff.

The TUC said it will investigate the worst offenders

Most of the calls were from South Wales (15%) and Scotland (14%) which has a higher concentration of call centres than the rest of the country.

The Call Centre Management Association said the results of the hotline were "disappointing".

Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Forsyth said: "It really highlights some very poor management in some organisations.

"The industry is expanding rapidly and the challenge over the next few years will be to get the management and the leaders to drive the industry forward".

A report published by the Industrial Society, which was unveiled at the last Labour Party conference, suggested call centres could be bad for employees' mental health

The report, called New Work, New Stress, said the current trend for creating jobs intended to improve productivity and efficiency gave the employee little job control and was bad for their mental health.

The TUC hotline can be contacted on 0800 032 0033.