Many people grit their teeth when they have to reach out to a call center. They are frustrated by the automated response systems, long wait times, multiple transfers, pressure to buy more services, and all too frequently, a customer service representative who lacks the authority to address their issue. Why has customer service gotten so bad?

Disconnected: Call Center Workers Fight for Good Jobs in the Digital Age answers this question by taking the reader behind the scenes to the world of the call center worker, tracing the transformation of customer service operations in two leading telecommunications companies, AT&T and Verizon. Disconnected describes how management, operating in a deregulated, highly competitive market, adopted cost-saving practices that put strict time limits on customer interactions, imposed unreasonable sales quotas, required adherence to proscribed scripts, and deployed digital surveillance systems to track compliance. The result: unhealthy, stressful conditions for workers, poor service for customers, and a race to the bottom in labor standards.

There are four million call center workers in the United States and millions more across the globe. The management practices that Goldman describes in Disconnected are commonplace in most call centers. But call center workers at AT&T and Verizon have a resource for change that few other call center workers possess. They are represented by a union. Disconnected details how the predominantly female customer service workforce at AT&T and Verizon and their union, the Communications Workers of America, fought for good, humane jobs in the face of degraded working conditions and downward pressure on wages. They won impressive protections that are instructive for today’s workforce confronted with digital surveillance and artificial intelligence. But trends in technology, capitalism, and corporate governance – combined with employers’ aggressive assault on unions – narrowed their options. Disconnected explores how the actions of both workers and management shaped the social impact of the new digital technologies and gave new form to the telecommunications industry in a time of momentous change.

Debbie J. Goldman is the former Research Director and Telecommunications Policy Director of the Communications Workers of America. She holds a PhD from the University of Maryland in Labor History.