Targets call center jobs in India and elsewhere
Washington, DC: Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, has introduced a bill called the U.S. Call Center Workers and Consumer Protection Act, which if made into a law would to give preference in federal contracts to companies that haven’t relocated call center jobs overseas, require U.S. companies to identify the location of the call center and allow the customer to be transferred to a call center located in the U.S. if asked. The bill would also require companies to notify the Department of Labor (DOL) before they relocate call centers and create a public list of companies that outsource call center jobs. The senator’s office cited a new report from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which shows banks are “aggressively offshoring call center jobs outside of the U.S., even after the same big banks disproportionately benefitted from the recent tax bill.”
Speaking to call center workers on a news conference call to highlight his legislation, Senator Brown remarked, “Most Americans want to support American jobs by buying American whenever they can and that includes the customer service they get from call centers,” said Brown. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. lost 200,000 call center jobs between 2006 and 2014.
Similar attempts to deter off-shoring of American jobs have been made earlier too, including the bill introduced by democratic Congressmen Gene Green and Republican David McKinley in 2017 and Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania in 2016. In a report titled “Why Shipping Call Center Jobs Overseas Hurts Us Back Home” the CWA warns that off-shoring call center jobs are not only bad for American workers and communities but also harmful to the security of U.S. consumers’ sensitive information. The CWA, the largest communications and media labor union in the US, noted that India and the Philippines are the top two destinations for US companies off-shoring call center jobs.
Sanjay Puri, Chairman, US India Political Action Committee, said, “There is a lot of innovation and research happening in science and technology in the US. India too can attract innovation and talent with appropriate funding and capacity building. USINPAC will continue to foster US-India partnership, in harnessing this potential and will support all bilateral partnerships to achieve this goal.”
About USINPAC
The US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) is the voice of over 3.2 million Indian- Americans and works on issues that concern the community. It supports candidates for local, state and federal office and encourages political participation by the Indian- American community. Visit www.usinpac.com for more details.
