Call center employees say "Be fair, do not single us out"

CEBU, Philippines - A veteran in the call center industry yesterday cried foul over reports relaying the Department of Health study that shows increasing HIV cases among call center agents due to risky behaviors.

In an interview with The FREEMAN, Ruben Carlos Carangal, who has been in the call center industry for seven years starting as an agent but now working for a client of a major call center in the country, said that the reports have caused “a great demoralization and de-motivation” to agents he has interactions with.

“If clients read abut this, do you think they will come here? Remember the swine flu outbreak? Clients ask regular updates because they are very concern of the things affecting the operations,” Carangal stressed.

“Why are you pinning us down while we provide employment to over 450,000 people who are now in the call center industry and indirect employment to other industry like transportation, malls?” he added.

According to him, the DOH and the University of the Philippines-Population Institute study is biased because it just compared call center agents among non-call center agents.

It is unfair, he said, because these non-call center agents may belong to different industries like in the hotel industry, manufacturing, nursing and other professions.

A study made by the UP Population Institute and DOH entitled “Lifestyle and Reproductive Health Issues of Young Professionals in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu” revealed that more call center workers are engaged in risky behaviors that can lead to another risky behavior.

Dr. Eric Tayag of the National Epidemiology Center said that a survey two years ago showed that more call center agents are into alcohol, which he added clouds the mind and may lead to risky sexual behavior like casual sex.

“Do not compare an apple to the rest of the fruits,” Carangal said. “Don’t nurses drink? Don’t engineers drink? Don’t factory workers drink? If you should compare, compare call center agents to nurses, call center agents to hotel workers, not call center agents to the rest of the industry.”

Carangal added that it is a misnomer to declare that a lot of call center agents smoke.

What is even worse, he said, is the connotation that these reports have created in the minds of the people who read the newspaper, listen to radio or watch the television.

Carangal also said that call center agents have strict medical requirements which the DOH and other industries may have not known, the reason why they gave their judgment right away. — Jessica Ann R. Pareja/WAB   (FREEMAN NEWS)