Federal legislators introduced a bipartisan bill last week in the House that would punish U.S. corporations for offshoring their call centers, making such companies ineligible for grants or guaranteed loans from the federal government.
The idea behind the bill, of course, is to stem the tide of jobs heading overseas. Introduced by Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) and Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), the protectionist legislation would put some mandates on call center operations. Not only would U.S. customer service representatives working overseas have to disclose their locations upon request, they also would have to offer callers the option of being transferred to call centers in the U.S.
While some call center jobs have trickled back into the U.S. in recent years, the long-term trend has shown thousands of U.S.-based customer service positions being outsourced to India and the Philippines. The Philippines' call-center industry recently surpassed India's as the largest in the world, according to a report in USA Today.
"Outsourcing is one of the scourges of our economy and one of the reasons we are struggling to knock down the unemployment rate and reduce the number of Americans who are out of work," Bishop said in a conference call with reporters. "We can't prohibit it, but we can certainly discourage it."
The bill has strong backing from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union representing 700,000 workers, more than 150,000 of whom are customer service reps. Ron Collins, CWA's chief of staff, said that Americans have been losing decent-paying call-center jobs so that large corporations can save on labor costs. He praised AT&T for its decision to bring 5,000 customer service jobs back to the U.S. as part of its merger with T-Mobile.
The CWA said it plans to release a report this week that shows that consumer fraud and identity theft is higher at call centers abroad than in the U.S.
Many accounts receivable management firms offshore parts of their collections. To comment on this bill, contact Darren Waggoner, Editor, at 312.777.1379 or darren.waggoner@sourcemedia.com.
