In July, Ghassen Ben Jannet, an employee of Teleperformance in Greece, was elected vice-president of the new office representing employees of the French multinational, which employs nearly 13,000 people in the country. Since then, he believes he has become the management's pet peeve. His one-year fixed-term contract, which was to be renewed in December, will not be. “My manager justified this decision because of my behavior. But, I have worked for Teleperformance since 2018, I have never had a series of absences, my clients and my superiors have always given me positive feedback”explains the Tunisian employee. For the thirty-year-old, there is no doubt, the company “tries to put pressure on all other employees so that they do not participate in the mobilization and accept deplorable working conditions”.
In this context, the Telecommunications and IT Workers' Union (Setip) is calling for a new strike on Monday, December 23, the tenth since the beginning of the year, to denounce the methods of intimidation against strikers, dismissals or non-renewal of employment contracts of union members.
Nikos Spyrelis, the president of the Teleperformance Greece Workers' Union, calculated that around thirty employees are affected by these procedures within the seven Teleperformance telephone platforms in the country, who handle, in several languages, customer services of multinationals like Apple, Google or Airbnb. Among the people whose contracts will not be renewed in 2025 are notably the vice-president of the union, the treasurer, the presidents of the offices in Thessaloniki (in the north) and Chania (Crete).
Bill criminalizing union actions
In February, Setip succeeded in creating an office within Teleperformance. Since then, he has called for salary increases, the reintroduction of collective agreements (suppressed in Greece during the 2010-2018 financial crisis) and a generalization of permanent contracts, while the rule in the company is the multiplication of fixed-term contracts. But the management, which did not respond to questions from Worlddid not give in. On the contrary, she filed a legal appeal, ruling that Setip cannot represent the company's employees: she argues that it is not in the telecommunications sector, but services.
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Source: Lemonde