Working the Phones

Call centers have become a near-ubiquitous site of employment in our latecapitalist world, with over a million people working there in the United
Kingdom alone. The call center has become synonymous with low-paid, high-stress work under dictatorial supervision and precarious contracts.
With Working the Phones, Jamie Woodcock draws on time spent employed in non-unionized call center to take the public beyond anecdotal impressions
to a true picture of what work is like there. Focusing in particular on methods of control and resistance within the highly regulated environment,
Woodcock shows how call centers have become sadly emblematic of the post-industrial service economy.