HR 3219/S 1792
- With the decimation of manufacturing in the U.S., many communities committed millions in taxpayer dollars to fund incentives for companies opening customer service/call center jobs in their communities. However, the last decade has seen a number of those jobs now being shipped overseas, with companies pocketing taxpayer dollars and off-shoring the call center jobs just a few years later; leaving those communities devastated once again with job losses and lost financial investments.
- Oftentimes, calls into service centers go to countries where workers are exploited and/or human resource and information security practices are far inferior to those in the U.S. These centers are often referred to as modern day sweatshops.
- A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey found that 83 percent of Indian outsourcing companies surveyed had information security breaches during the previous year. There is a strong link between overseas call centers and security problems, putting American consumers at risk for identity theft, fraudulent transactions, and general mishandling of sensitive information.
- A growing trend for Indian call center companies is to subcontract the call center work out to other politically volatile countries that often times have even worse security protections.
- U.S. taxpayer money should not be awarded to companies that make a practice of sending U.S. jobs overseas – resulting in greater job losses here in the U.S., decimate communities, and jeopardize consumers.
This bill, if passed, would accomplish the following things:
- Create a ‘bad actor’ list of U.S. Companies that make a practice of sending U.S. jobs overseas: It would require a publically available list, kept by the Department of Labor, of all employers that relocated entirely or a significant portion of their call center or customer service work overseas. These companies would be ineligible for Federal grants or guaranteed loans. Preference will be given to U.S. employers that do not appear on the list for awarding civilian or defense-related contracts. Employers that relocate a call center will remain on the list for up to 5 years after each instance of relocating a call center.
- Disclose Call Center Location to U.S. Consumers: It would require the relocated overseas call center agent to disclose their name and physical location of their operation. For example, a customer may hear, “Hello, this is Jane in Manila.”
- Right to Transfer: The U.S. consumer would have the right to request the call be transferred to a customer service agent who is physically located in the U.S.
To cosponsor HR 3219, contact Octavian Jordan (Rep. McKinley) or Sergio Espinosa (Rep. Gene Green), and to cosponsor S 1792, contact Larry Smar (Sen. Casey).
For more information, contact Shane Larson, CWA Legislative Director, at slarson@cwa-union.org