USAID Suspends Aid for Call Center Outsourcing

The U.S. Agency for International Development has "suspended" an initiative training Filipino workers for call center jobs outsourced by American companies.

Responding to concern that the English language training project was undermining and weakening the U.S. workforce, the agency last Friday established a high-level task force to review the matter. The decision arrived just one day after Reps. Tim Bishop (D-NY), lead sponsor of a CWA-supported bill to penalize American companies that ship call center jobs overseas, and Walter Jones (R-NC) "vehemently" opposed to the use of taxpayer dollars and demanded that the "ill-advised project be discontinued immediately."

"It's bad enough that some of our largest corporations are soaking U.S. communities and taxpayers for generous financial incentives to locate in a community, only to leave local workers jobless when they eventually ship the call center jobs overseas," said CWA Chief of Staff Ron Collins. "But it's incredible to realize that these corporations are relying on taxpayer money to train foreign replacement workers — and that they're avoiding basic tax obligations through complicated avoidance schemes in the process."

In a letter to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Bishop and Jones vowed to "use every legislative option available to permanently prohibit USAID from engaging in such practices in the future."

Two years ago, Bishop was instrumental in ending a similar USAID program that spent millions in taxpayer dollars to train offshore IT workers in Sri Lanka.

Since 2007, more than 500,000 call center jobs have been outsourced from the United States to foreign countries. Bishop, along with Rep. Dave McKinley (R-W.Va.), are the key sponsors of H.R. 3596, the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act, which will create a "bad actor" list of companies that send U.S. call center jobs overseas; require that overseas agents disclose their name and location; and give consumers the right to be transferred to a U.S. facility. It will also bar U.S. companies that outsource call center jobs from receiving federal grants and loans for five years. CWA is a strong supporter of this bill; there are now more than 117 co-sponsors.