Out to cause acoustic shock - the disgruntled caller
At around two per cent of the overall workforce, call centre operators make up for an increasingly large proportion of UK full-time and part-time workers. Even without the potential dangers of suffering acoustic shock, being a call centre worker is a difficult job as it is often sedentary, repetitious and highly pressured.
Although the vast majority of call centre workers are there to provide some form of valuable public or commercial service, they tend to get a very bad press. People lead busy and time challenged lives. These stresses coupled with feelings of disempowerment can lead them to unfairly scapegoat call centre workers.
This might result in relatively benign actions such as being rude to a call centre worker, or it might result in downright dangerous behaviour such as whistling or shouting down the telephone line. This latter scenario can cause the kinds of muscular spasms that result in acoustic shock.
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations exist to provide a regulatory framework of protection to all UK workers who are at risk of suffering some form of industrial deafness. One other valuable initiative in protecting call centre workers has been the Acoustic Safety Programme, which was launched with the safety of call centre operators specifically in mind.
At the time of its launch, the Minister for Health and Safety commented, "Taking action early can prevent these problems. The most important advice for call centres is to have a traceable reporting system for headset users, and that headsets should have built-in protection against high noise levels."
In keeping with its policy of securing workers' interests and safety, the Communication Workers Union was a major backer of the Acoustic Safety Programme. Yet although they are the largest union of their kind, their membership stands at around only 250,000, leaving at least 750,000 call centre workers outside of their umbrella of protection.
While these organisations, initiatives and legislatory protections, certainly help safeguard communications workers from the hazards of noise at work, there is less that can be done about members of the public who deliberately induce acoustic shock by transmitting high-frequency or high-volume noises down the telephone line. There is no doubt that noise-dampenning headsets help, but even the best of these can be fallible to this kind of malicious act.
Perhaps it is because call centre workers are often perceived as being only faceless voices working for large and impersonal companies that many people feel it is ok to ambush them with dangerous noise.
Unfortunately, all of the following are relatively common practices among disgruntled members of the public:
- Shouting down the telephone.
- Whistling down the telephone.
- Putting a screaming baby on the line.
- Feeding a high-frequency alarm down the line.
- Playing loud music into the receiver.
Making a no win, no fee compensation claim
All employers in the UK have a duty to protect their workers from all forms of injury, whether caused by environmental factors in the workplace or angry members of the public.
Here at YouClaim we have many years of experience helping workers who have suffered injury as a result of employer negligence.
Suffering any form of deafness is never a trivial matter and our no win, no fee lawyers take acoustic shock claims very seriously.
We have an excellent success rate and never charge our clients a penny for their services, win or lose.
Furthermore, our 100% compensation pledge means you can rest assured that neither we nor anyone else will ever take a cut from the money awarded you.
If you would like to discover more about how we can help you claim the compensation you deserve, simply fill out an online claim form or use our e-chat window.
Alternatively, if you would like to speak to a legal advisor on the telephone, call us on 0800 10 757 95. If you would like a chat but now is not a convenient time, you can always leave us a callback request.
