Irate call centre employees down tools

Call centre staff at Ison Xperiences Bpo in Newton Park have downed tools and are demanding answers after the company allegedly claimed from the Unemployment Insurance Fund on their behalf and did not pay them.

The staff of about 400 call centre agents say they were not aware that the company had claimed until they independently checked their statuses on the department of employment and labour’s online system and discovered they had already been claimed for through the UIF temporary employee relief scheme (Ters).

The staff claim that, when they inquired with management, they were allegedly told they would receive the money with their salaries on Monday, but that did not materialise.

One employee, who asked not to be named for fear of being victimised, accused the company of having so much “rot” that employees were not even sure of what amount they were meant to receive.

“Month after month our basic salaries are incomplete and whenever we query, we are told it will be investigated.

“Last month, when some of our salaries were shortened, we were [allegedly] told that we would get the rest of the money with this month’s pay but that didn’t happen either,” the employee said.

The staff downed tools yesterday and staged a sit-in at the Worraker Street office park, where they demanded answers.

Other employees said they had not received payslips in months.

Some of those who had received payslips claimed there were irregularities, particularly for March and last month.

An employee’s payslips seen by The Herald shows more than R30,000 total taxable earnings in March, which had dropped significantly to less than R10,000 on the April payslip.

“Nothing has been explained to us about these changes to our payslips.

“We perform the same duties but our salaries are always different,” one employee said.

Another employee said: “How do they claim UIF without informing us?”

The employees said they had discovered that the claim was processed on May 18.

They claimed further that the company did not allow them to join a union and that some staff had allegedly been working on a probationary basis since the Port Elizabeth branch opened in April last year, even though their contracts stated a six-month probationary period.

“We have had to sign new contracts with a six-month probation period a number of times,” another employee alleged.

“I had to sign because once you refuse to sign, you’ll get a call to HR for a disciplinary hearing and no-one ever comes back to work from that.”

Port Elizabeth branch head Mahommed Khadir did not respond to questions sent to him.

When reminded, he said he would respond before 4pm yesterday, but failed to do so.