What
In the summer of 1999 we decided to start working in call centres in order to meet people who work there and to understand what's going on. We wanted to combine our rage against the daily exploitation with the desire and search for the struggles that can overcome it. Therefore, we had to understand the class reality at this point, be part of the conflicts and intervene. Three years and a millennium later we have written down part of our experience, taken from more than ten call centres in which we sweated; from discussions with friends in England and Italy who also worked in call centres; from reports of other call centre-workers in the US, France and Australia; from interviews, theoretical discussions and the debate on methods of inquiry and intervention...

For whom
We have written this because we feel the urge to publish something now. In the last three years we have discussed, tried out, pushed so much; we now want to contribute to the further discussion. Who are we writing this for? For everyone...
* who wants to understand what the reality of exploitation looks like in call centres, how people get together there, how they do their work and how they rebel against it;
* who is looking for ways to collectively confront the shitty situations in the sphere of exploitation that we come across every day;
* who has had enough of representatives of parties and unions and wants to take things into their own hands;
* who - like us - wants to find the revolutionary tendencies that can sweep away the conditions of exploitation.

Why
We write this down because we want to provoke a discussion of how we can get rid not just of call centres but the relations of exploitation altogether. We ask you to read our experiences critically and maybe try out something similar. Not that we see this as a 'duty' or a 'historical mission'. We can overcome the leftist culture of representation and self-sacrifice only by referring to the concrete conditions of exploitation, by inquiring and intervening.
This is our struggle for the control of our life, against alarm clocks and work shifts, the rhythm of the machine, the racist foreman, the sexist division of labour and the warmongers. Therefore we need clear thoughts, open discussions, solidarity and responsibility, specific methods and concrete aims.
This is a contribution to the process. This is our own perspective. We aren't journalists, scientists, professional writers or officials. We have written this as workers who experience and fight against daily exploitation, and as a collective who is searching for revolutionary potentials in order to get rid of the relations of exploitation.

...

The inquiry in call centres was an attempt, a start. We invite you to follow us through a part of class reality, that we have investigated. You will find some rough edges in this text along with information, questions, critiques, proposals. This book is a reader. You can read it from start to finish or browse it and jump around the various sections.

From the introduction....