Letter to President Barrack Obama

Letter

Hailing today's White House forum on insourcing, Congressman Tim Bishop urged President Obama to focus on returning jobs in the call center industry to the United States from overseas.

In a letter, Bishop urged the President to consider the "U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act," the bipartisan bill he sponsored to bar corporations that outsource U.S. call center jobs from receiving federal grants and loans, as a framework for Executive action to encourage the retention and growth of call center jobs in America.

Highlighting the fact that U.S-based call centers account for approximately three percent of jobs in the American workforce, Bishop wrote: "I hope your Administration will seriously consider the remedy my colleagues and I are confident will reduce the incidence of outsourcing by creating new incentives to insource call center jobs and provide a measure of stability and longevity to a sector of America's workforce that needs our help as our economy continues to recover."

Bishop's "U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act," which is co-sponsored by Reps. Dave McKinley (R, WVA-1), Mike Michaud (D, ME-1), Mike Grimm (R, NY-13) and Gene Green (D, TX-29), would require the U.S. Department of Labor to track firms that move call center jobs overseas; the firms would then be ineligible for any direct or indirect federal loans or loan guarantees for five years. The provision is partially a response to the practice of companies taking millions in incentives from local taxpayers to open call centers in the U.S., only to off-shore their operations a short time later and leave local communities devastated and still paying the bill.

Bishop's bill also requires overseas call center employees to disclose their location to US consumers and gives customers the right to be transferred to a US-based call center upon request. The legislation has the full support of the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America.

Bishop's complete letter to President Obama is included below:

January 11, 2012

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I applaud you for convening the "Insourcing American Jobs Forum" at the White House this morning. I respectfully request that you consider a bipartisan proposal I have introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to protect U.S.-based business agents engaged in customer service communications and call center employees from being outsourced to locations overseas among any proposals supported, developed or advanced as a result of today's forum.

As you know, call centers are a major engine in our nation's economy. In fact, U.S-based call centers account for approximately three percent of jobs in the American workforce. It is evident that your Administration supports policies that not only advocate preserving call center jobs within our borders but also expand the number of jobs and the breadth of industries that employ call center employees. I also commend you for promoting policies that will make our overall economy grow faster and expand job creation as your Administration's priority objectives.

However, despite our best efforts to protect call center employees, approximately 500,000 call center jobs have been lost over the past four years according to data provided by the American Teleservices Association and 2010 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These job losses are a direct consequence of corporate practices and incentives that encourage continued off-shoring and outsourcing. This trend has not only restricted employment opportunities but it has also placed consumers' personal information at risk to security breaches.

In response, I have worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the House and with employee advocacy organizations including the Communications Workers of America to identify new incentives and expand accountability and transparency in the call center industry. Our proposal would not eliminate the practice of off-shoring, which remains the right of any U.S. employer to pursue, but give them a choice to keep their call center jobs in the U.S. or become ineligible for any direct and indirect federal loans or grants for five years if they relocate such jobs overseas. Additionally, our proposal would require that a list of companies that off-shore their call center work to be catalogued by the Department of Labor and made available to the public. Furthermore, it would require foreign-based call center employees to disclose their location to U.S. consumers and transfer that call to a U.S.-based call center if requested by the caller.

Local governments throughout our nation have committed millions of taxpayer dollars to fund incentives for companies to locate call centers in their communities in the past decade. However, there remain several examples of businesses using these taxpayer funds and off-shoring the call centers jobs just a few years later, leaving local taxpayers to pay the bill. Therefore, I hope your Administration will seriously consider the remedy my colleagues and I are confident will reduce the incidence of outsourcing by creating new incentives to insource call center jobs and provide a measure of stability and longevity to a sector of America's workforce that needs our help as our economy continues to recover.

I wish your Administration success with the insourcing initiative and encourage you to consider the proposal I have explained above as this effort advances. Thank you, in advance, for attention and consideration of this important request.

Sincerely,

Tim Bishop

Member of Congress

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