Press Releases

A new investigative report in today?s Washington Post highlights the fact that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney helped to usher in the detrimental practice of shipping call center jobs overseas. This news comes as the U.S. call center industry continues to shed jobs - this very day seven T-Mobile call centers facilities in six states are closing, affecting 3,300 American workers.

Today, in a near party-line vote of 238-178, the U.S. House of Representatives voted against considering legislation sponsored by Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and Rep. Dave McKinley (R-WV) entitled the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act. The legislation would have helped to revitalize a U.S. call center industry that has lost over 500,000 jobs just in the past six years, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the process, the legislation also would have strengthened American consumer security against ongoing security problems associated with overseas call centers.

The decision by a U.S. District Court Judge granting a temporary restraining order to block the vote by nearly 10,000 passenger service agents means workers, not American Airlines, will suffer irreparable harm ? the standard for such an order. Clearly the airline is afraid of workers having their democratic vote and has been fighting hard to stop it.

Verizon workers from five states and Washington D.C. rallied alongside consumer advocates and community organizations in front of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today to urge regulators to put conditions on the proposed anti-competitive deal between Verizon subsidiary Verizon Wireless and Big Cable.