‘Don’t allow you to go to the bathroom’: big tech’s call center workers in Greece on strike
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Workers at Teleperformance, customer support company for Apple, Google and Netflix, accuse it of union busting and surveillance. Call center workers for some of the world’s biggest tech companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Netflix are accusing their employer of retaliating against union organisers, constantly surveilling staff and even refusing bathroom breaks.
![[Call center workers striking]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1bc48062cd8bac813d6d515d272bb578be61ca26/0_0_1600_901/master/1600.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In the US or Europe, if you call for technical or customer support from a big tech company, you may be speaking with a worker at one of Teleperformance’s call centers in Greece. Teleperformance, the largest call center operator in the world, employs about 12,000 workers in Greece, serving more than 140 markets around the world in 43 different languages and dialects. The company has seven multi-language hubs in Greece – in Athens, Chania, and Thessaloniki.
Workers who have been pushing for a collective labor agreement with Teleperformance in Greece say the company has recently retaliated with targeted layoffs of union leaders. They say wages have remained unchanged since 2010, when Greece was hit by austerity measures by creditors, despite high inflation in recent years and increases to the cost of living.
Nikos Spyrelis, a call center worker at Teleperformance and president of Setep, the trade union representing Teleperformance workers in Greece, explained that the union effort began in early 2024 in response to the lack of any pay raises for years and increasing production pressure that workers are put under.
