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Bill Seeks Controls over Call Center Outsourcing

 

February 14, 2012

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You dial a number for help with your computer or to order a pair of shoes. You often come away with the same question:  Where was the voice on the other end located?  With so many North Americans out of work—men and women who could use a job, any job—are you being serviced by an operator thousands of miles away in another nation, or one just up the road?


The U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act, A bipartisan bill with 25 co-sponsors in Congress, prohibits companies that outsource call center jobs to other nations from receiving federal grants or guarantees. And it makes them list all their offshore call centers. The CWA has launched an online campaign to support the bill.

Rep. Dave McKinley (R-W.Va.) is a co-sponsor of the proposed legislation, which also requires call centers representing U.S. corporations to transfer customers to domestic call centers upon request, says:

I’m pleased to see this growing wave of support for a common sense bill that will protect American workers and consumers … Our taxpayers should not be financing those who send our jobs overseas.

The IBEW represents call center workers at dozens of utility and telecommunications companies.  Many have faced severe cutbacks and concessionary demands from employers.  And recently, the IBEW was contacted by workers in a North Carolina call center operated by a multinational corporation who want to organize. Says International President Edwin D. Hill:

I am encouraged by the bipartisan consensus behind the call center bill. After years of sounding the alarm about outsourcing, finally the labor movement is seeing some positive steps to level the playing field that has put so many jobs, so many communities and so many families at risk. I urge members to  e-mail their representatives in support of H.R. 3596.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user Army Medicine.