In December 1999 workers of the British Telecom (BT) call centers staged a one-day strike all over the country. It was mainly about the hiring of more temporary workers, the increasing work stress, unrealistic work targets and the bullying by the bosses. 4000 workers in 37 call centers took part in the strike. The temporary workers did not. The communications workers’ union (CWU) initially called three one-day strikes. After the management had agreed to let the CWU have a bargaining position it called off the other two. Surprised? The strike has not really changed anything. It was short and did not really disturb the work process. For some BT-workers this was not enough: When in March 2000 the temp agency Manpower was substituted by Hays and the wages were lowered immediately, some did not accept the new contracts or started a series of acts of sabotage in order to show how they felt. For instance, the speaking clock in Zimbabwe was called for hours and the workers did "work-to-rule", which gave them plenty of time for gossip, tale-telling and other work-refusal-techniques. At BT there are more and more precarious, low-paid and temp jobs. Furthermore, the work stress is getting worse. The management tries to use the "carrot" of a possible permanent contract and at the same time threatens with the "stick" of firing workers. The question is how the division between permanent and temp workers with poorer conditions is influencing their abilitiy for common struggles.