New Federal Bill Would Crack Down on Call Center Offshoring

New legislation introduced this week by Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), in the U.S. Senate and the bipartisan duo of Reps. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) in the House would help crack down on companies for offshoring call center jobs. The U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act (S.1792 and H.R. 3219) would ensure that taxpayer dollars are not rewarding companies that offshore their customer service work and would give consumers the power to decide where to have their calls handled.

The new federal call center bill builds on the momentum generated by CWA members across the country as they pushed states to introduce, move forward, and pass legislation addressing issues around call center offshoring during the 2019 legislative session in both Democratic and Republican-controlled state legislatures.

So far in 2019, 24 state legislatures have introduced bills on call center offshoring, up from 18 in 2018. Both legislative chambers in Alabama unanimously passed a bill to stop taxpayer dollars going to companies that offshore call center jobs and the Governor signed the bill into law. Colorado, Maine, and Nevada also passed bills in 2019, joining Louisiana’s passage of a state bill in 2018. An additional four states have passed a state call center bill in one legislative chamber in 2019 while five others have held legislative committee hearings and votes on call center bills.

"As we've seen in states across the country, there is growing and bipartisan momentum to address offshoring in the call center industry and to stand up to companies intent on shipping good jobs overseas without accountability," said Shane Larson, CWA's Director of Legislation, Politics and International Affairs.