“Life has become very difficult. I consider that before I wasn’t, but now I consider myself precarious, but now I’m precarious because I have to do a lot of things have three professions: the union, full time at the call centre, and I am also a part-time Uber driver, which is another precarious job. I’m a driver, sometimes I work two or three hours, but I am very poorly paid too. I still have to help my family, my sister who is in the USA (…) I don’t consider myself a poor worker, but I don’t have everything I would like to achieve, I have to eat, maintain a good quality of life. It is difficult to plan the future with the current situation (…) we are facing a crisis similar to the 2008 crisis, who can think about having a child even if they have capital and stability, there are no conditions”. [E4, Man, 44 years old, Venezuela]
“I consider myself a precarious worker in the sense of being poorly paid, of having more work than being recognized”. [E6, Man, 45 years old, Venezuela]
Regarding their projection in the near future, some of them don’t see any other alternative in the labour market but to be a call and contact centre worker.
“Last week I turned 60 and I want to continue working in the back office because there are no jobs in the job market”. [E14, Man, 60 years old, Colombia]
“The ideal job for me is the call centre. The idea that the call centre is a temporary job will disappear because there are many people who have their families working in a call centre and make it a profession like working in a textile factory (…) I don’t see myself working in a cafe. I don’t see working in call centres as temporary, there are many families that depend on the call centre, it’s a job for life”. [E5, Woman, 55 years old, Venezuela]
6 Perceptions Towards Suffering
In this scenario of (de)regulation and flexibilisation of work, the world of digital and platform work comprises a stage of suffering, provided not only by business management, by the metrics established by algorithmic management which, in a way, embodies the role of a virtual foreman, and temporary work agencies. These immigrants had been working either in outbound and outbound, back and front-office work, especially in customer support service, for more than two years. They do not constitute a transitional workforce, although they were subject to precarious working conditions involving temporary work agencies. In fact, call and contact centres are among the most common and easy entrance employment opportunities for immigrants, being most of them grateful, even if they might suffer exploitation.
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