BPO workers cry foul over unfair quotas, termination policies
Business process outsourcing (BPO) workers in the Philippines are complaining about unfair quotas and their use in termination policies, according to Sara Prestoza, a call center agent for 12 years, and president of the Unified Employees of Alorica (UEA). The UEA is the only union of BPO workers in the country. Prestoza said a BPO worker currently receives an average monthly pay packet of about P13,000 to P15,000, and employers often setting salary and incentive caps to prevent wages from increasing. Employees may also be given hourly quotas as part of BPO firms’ employee development plans in which employers increase the quota for transactions or productivity. The outcome is workers fail to meet the new quota and are terminated as a result. Prestoza said this strategy is being used by companies to systematically replace workers with cheaper labor, sometimes as low as P5,000 monthly.
