Call center in sciopero, l’allarme dei sindacati su 13mila posti

Approximately 5,000 workers in ongoing disputes, alongside an additional crisis affecting 10,000 employees, have called for a national strike of call center workers today, Wednesday, November 11, 2026. The strikes, organized by Slc Cgil, Fistel Cisl, and Uilfpc Uil, are a result of automation and artificial intelligence threatening to make 30% of the approximately 43,000 workers in the industry structurally redundant, or about 13,000 positions.

To address this, nearly a dozen agreements on social amortization have been signed, involving around 15,000 workers. The crisis stems from decreasing call volumes as banks, telephone operators, and energy companies increasingly automate customer inquiries. The strike will primarily impact regions in the South and islands, where 70% of the call center workforce operates.

Women make up roughly 65% of these employees. In inbound call assistance alone, which has grown since 2010, the workforce has reduced from about 80,000 to current numbers. The unions argue that the tools available are outdated and insufficient for a necessary professional requalification towards digitalized tasks. They demand a permanent table with the Ministries of Enterprises and Labor, along with companies from both sectors and public and private entities.

The unions propose programming work volumes over multiple years and holding companies accountable for maintaining employment throughout the supply chain. In competitions, they ask for price price to be limited between 20-30% and to ensure that workers retain their hours and seniority upon transition. The final issue is what to do with operators when basic requests are taken over by bots.

The unions call for strengthening the solidarity fund of the telecommunications industry and funding training for managing complex practices and supervising AI systems. They also propose using productivity gains to reduce working hours to 32 per week, as seen in the 32-hour week example.