Call-center work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: challenges for work

Abstract

This article deals with call-center working in the context of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, seeking to understand the implications for work from the perspective of the era of digital technologies mediated by employment precariousness and the intensification of unemployment. The methodology was a bibliographical and documental review, using statistical data from the IBGE and labor laws, to highlight the questions and contradictions arising from the destructuring of work in Brazil, under the determinations of capitalist society, which demonstrate the current of employment situation and the disruption of labor and social rights. Our objective is to demonstrate that call-center working demonstrates a trend following the changes brought about by productive restructuring through the intensification of labor exploitation, company cost reduction strategies and the reduction of unemployment, alongside work insecurity, through imposed self-employment. It concludes that the scenario triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic anticipated a preexisting trend which demonstrates a prolonged process of counter-reforms that lay bare the difficulties for a working class deprived of labor protections.