Conference Call Held On Pending Anti-Offshore Call Center Legislation

The proposed, bi-partisan legislation called the “U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act” has been generating a lot of headlines lately, for good reason. The bill, an attempt to provide incentives to bring call centers jobs that have been outsourced back onto U.S. shores, has bipartisan Congressional support, the support of the Communications Workers of America (CWA (News - Alert)) union and the stamp of approval of U.S. consumers everywhere.

What it doesn't have, is the approval of much of Corporate America, or the governments of countries that benefit from call center outsourcing, such as the Philippines.

If enacted, the bill would prevent companies that relocate U.S. call centers to overseas locations from getting lucrative federal grants and loans. Businesses that move call center jobs from the U.S. to foreign shores would be ineligible for “direct” or “indirect” federal loans, nor could they get loan guarantees for five years. Consumers would also be given a choice: the right to demand that their call be handled by a U.S.-based call center worker (call centers doing business in the U.S. would be required to disclose their location). In addition, the names of companies that offshore their call center work would be made available to the public in a list.

Today, the bill's sponsors, Rep. Tim Bishop (D -NY1) and Rep. Dave McKinley (R -WV-1) will join CWA's Chief of Staff Ron Collins on a media call to discuss the legislation’s popularity on both sides of the aisle. At the time of the media call, nearly a thousand attendees of the CWA Annual Legislative and Political Action Conference in Washington D.C., will be heading to Capitol Hill to urge more lawmakers to formally support the bill. CWA (cwa-union.org) represents 700,000 workers nationally and more than 150,000 of these hard working men and women are customer service professionals.