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Growing Support for Bills Penalizing Offshoring Call Center Jobs
Several bills that would penalize American companies for moving their call center jobs overseas are gaining momentum.
In Congress, Reps. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and David McKinley (R-W. Va.), have garnered 97 co-sponsors for the CWA-supported bill, "US Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act." Under the bill, companies outsourcing call centers would lose their federal grant and loan eligibility for five years, and the Labor Department would create a "bad actors" list of firms that make a practice of it. It also would require companies to tell American consumers the location of the call center employee to whom they are speaking and give the consumer the right to ask that the call be transferred to a US-based customer service representative.
California, Maryland, Florida, Arizona and New Jersey state legislatures are also considering similar legislation.
On a media call organized by CWA on Wednesday, New Jersey Assemblywoman Connie Wagner called her proposal, which would bar companies that outsource call center jobs from receiving state tax breaks and subsidies, a "common sense bill" that would help her state bring down its 9 percent unemployment rate. "Those are good paying jobs," she said.
But there is opposition. On the CWA-led call, Bishop said that India and the Philippines — two countries that have benefited immensely from outsourcing and now boast large call center industries — have launched an "extraordinary" lobbying campaign against his bill.
"If U.S. call center jobs going offshore is such a big component of the Filipino or Indian economy, then we're losing a ton of jobs over there," he told reporters. "If it's important to their economy then it's important to ours."
Over the past four years, the United States has lost at least 500,000 call center jobs as companies shifted operations offshore, Bishop said.
Click here to urge Congress to pass the bill and save and restore American call center jobs.