Sen. Sherrod Brown Pushes Call Center Bill

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown joined CWA Locals 4310 and 4501 to promote his legislation to keep good call center jobs in the United States.

"Most Ohioans that have had to call a major company for a service repair or to get an answer about their cable bill have ended up speaking with a worker in a different time zone, on a different continent," Brown said. "When companies send call center jobs overseas, they don't just frustrate consumers — they hurt our economy as well. With thousands of Ohioans looking for work, it just doesn't make sense to ship these jobs overseas."

Brown is co-sponsoring a bill, the Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act of 2012, which would make businesses that ship call center jobs overseas ineligible for federal grants or loans. It would require companies to disclose when their calls are being transferred abroad and give consumers the right to talk to a U.S.-based operator, and it would direct the Labor Department to make a public list of companies that outsource. Tell your senators to support the bill by signing this petition.

According to a CWA analysis, 198,450 Ohioans were employed in call center occupations in 2011, and the state experienced a loss of 2,330 call center jobs between 2008 and 2011.

The Business Courier recently reported that Cincinnati-based Convergys Corp. cut costs in recent years by downsizing its North American operations and expanding into low-wage countries like India. In June, 40 percent of Convergys' contact center employees were located in the Philippines.