Call Center Legislation Update

CWA members and allies continue to put pressure on corporations to stop sending call center jobs overseas.

Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and nine other Democratic Senators sent a letter last week to President Trump calling on him to take executive action and support legislation to help rein in offshoring and bring call center jobs back to the United States.

Many of the same Senators alerted President Trump to the need for action last year, but instead of working to reduce offshoring, the Trump Administration backed provisions in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act that provide incentives for corporations to send jobs overseas. Many of the companies that are the biggest beneficiaries of the Republican tax bill, including AT&T and Wells Fargo, have been closing American call centers and aggressively offshoring U.S. jobs, especially in the call center and customer service industry.

To help stop this harmful offshoring, CWA supports federal call center legislation, backed by ten Senators as well as a bipartisan group in the House, that would make U.S. companies that offshore their call center jobs ineligible for certain taxpayer funded grants and loans. The bill would give U.S. consumers a right to know where they are calling and to be transferred to a U.S.-based location, and create a public list of companies that offshore call center jobs.

Colorado

Call center workers and supporters from across Colorado gathered at the State Capitol in Denver to lobby for HB18-1435, a CWA-backed bill to protect call center jobs. Many CWAers spoke personally with their own representatives, who expressed interest in and support for the legislation.

CWA members from Local 7750, Mimi Mahdi, Greg Caren, and Riley Emmons, along with Dustin Sullivan from Local 7702, testified in support of the bill at a House Finance Committee hearing. Listen to audio from the hearing, including Representative Daneya Esgar (D-Pueblo), the bill's sponsor, speaking about the need to protect call center jobs.

CWA call center workers and supporters from across Colorado gathered at the State Capitol in Denver to lobby for legislation to protect call center jobs.

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Louisiana

A bill introduced by Louisiana Senator Troy Carter and supported by CWA giving the state the ability to claw back tax incentives when corporations don't keep the employment promises they make has made major strides towards becoming law. The bill was spearheaded by CWA members in order to crack down on call center employers that utilize state tax dollars and then move the work out of state.

The bill, supported widely by both Democrats and Republicans, cleared the State Senate on a unanimous vote, and cleared the State House Ways and Means Committee. The State House is expected to vote on the bill this week or next, and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is expected to sign it, once passed.