92 Gender Matters Call center workers’ associations as well as workers’ groups trying to organize call center workers should also put in their main agenda the health and safety problems faced by women employees in the CC-BPO industry, especially the solo parents, the pregnant women, and the lactating mothers. Safety measures and other arrangements should be put in place to address the specific concerns of women, such as security guards to accompany employees to where they take their rides, arrangement with taxi companies, and shuttle services to ferry employees from office to drop off points in the transport route. There should also sleeping quarters for those who opt to spend the night and wait for day break before going home. The government should ensure that all call center establishments provide resident physicians for pregnant women, breastfeeding areas and daycare facilities. In addition, pregnant women should be exempted from night shifts. In addition, the differential in average wages between men and women as mentioned by Amante (2008) should be looked into and addressed. This should be included in the agenda of unions trying to organize call center employees, as well as in any proposed laws on the welfare of call center workers. Finally, because of the very nature of their job, the fact that call center workers have to leave their families at night and sleep during the day cannot be helped. Many of the participants in the author’s research (Domingo-Cabarrubias 2012) bemoan the fact that they could not spend more time with their children, who, as a consequence, oftentimes feel closer to other people than their mother. One of the participants remarked that in a “regular job,” she could at least sleep together with her family. Because of call center work, they have to depend on their spouses, or relatives, house-help or yaya to stay with the children at night and even during the days when they have to sleep. Consequently, their children sometimes feel closer to other people than to their mother. The participants all agreed that if they had a choice where they could spend more time with their families, they would surely grab it. For them, call center work is their choice because there is no better alternative.

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