CWA Members Urge State Legislators to Save Connecticut Call Center Jobs

CWA Local 1298 flooded Hartford with red this week to fight for Connecticut's call center jobs! Local 1298 President David Weidlich, Vice President Chuck Borchert, and other CWA members testified at a Labor Committee Public Hearing about the need for the Act Concerning Call Centers and Notice of Closures (H.B.5273), a bill to keep call center jobs in Connecticut and to stop companies that move jobs out-of-state from getting tax breaks.

"The core of this bill is simple," said Weidlich. "No taxpayer money should be used for companies that continuously ship our jobs out of the state."

For his testimony, Borchert read two letters written by AT&T call center workers whose jobs were moved from Meriden, Conn., to Georgia and Tennessee last year, forcing them to choose between moving out of state or losing their jobs. 

"My future plans are very uncertain at this time due to this layoff," wrote Meredith Arnold, who lost her job because she was unable to make the move to another state. "My ability to help my children pay for college is compromised, and my retirement plans are completely derailed as I was laid off two and a half years prior to being retirement eligible."

Watch the video here.