Union campaigns to bring call centers back to US

By Brendan Sasso - 08/14/12 03:06 PM ET

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) launched a political campaign on Tuesday in support of legislation that would pressure companies to locate their telephone call centers in the United States.

The union plans to campaign in 50 congressional districts to support lawmakers who back the United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act and attack lawmakers who oppose it. The campaign, which also targets the New Mexico and Wisconsin Senate races, will include robo-calls, radio ads and social-media tools.

The bill, offered by Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), would bar companies that offshore call centers from receiving federal grants and would require them to disclose the physical location of their center at the beginning of each call. The bill would also give callers the right to be transferred to a U.S. call center.

CWA has about 700,000 members, about 150,000 of whom work in customer service call centers. In recent years, many companies have relocated their customer service centers to countries like India and the Philippines, where wages are lower.

Critics of the bill say it would restrict free trade and hurt international commerce.

But the union released a poll on Tuesday that found broad support for keeping call centers in the United States. According to the poll, 78 percent of voters have a negative view of overseas call centers, and 59 percent said they have a very unfavorable impression of them.

Offshore call centers are unpopular with both Republicans and Democrats, the poll found.

The individual provisions of Bishop's call center bill are popular with voters, according to the poll. Nine in 10 respondents said they believe callers should have a right to be transferred to a U.S. center. The poll found that 81 percent of voters believe companies that offshore centers should be ineligible for grants, and 75 percent said they should not receive any tax breaks.

"Anti-offshoring proposals give candidates a powerful, pro-active issue to talk about on the campaign trail and more importantly a policy to support and vote in favor of," polling firm Lake Research Partners, which was hired by CWA, said. "These are clean, common sense proposals that resonate with voters and can cut through the clutter of a campaign."