3rd Party Remote Call Monitoring Feature

In this era of battling presidential candidates and angry sound bites, a piece of legislation that would affect all Americans has been flying under the radar.

In a rare show of bipartisan support, two Congressmen – one Democrat, one Republican – have introduced legislation that would impose penalties on call center companies that move their operations overseas, taking much-needed jobs with them.

Representatives Gene Green (D-TX) and David McKinley (R-WV) reintroduced H.R. 4604, the U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act, to deter American companies from shipping call center and service jobs to foreign countries.

“There are 54,000 call center jobs in the greater Houston area alone and 2.5 million nationwide. It is important that American workers continue to have access to good service sector jobs and receive a livable wage,” Green said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we have seen call center jobs moved overseas to India, the Philippines and other countries over the past decade for cheaper wages and lower labor standards. This is simply not right. Offshoring is harming working families in Houston and around the country. This bipartisan legislation will protect call center workers in Harris County and Texas and throughout the country, and American consumers from unfair treatment,” he added.

The bill would deter companies from shipping American jobs overseas and instead incentivize them to locate in the U.S. by creating a public list of so-called ‘bad actors’, those companies that shipped all or most of their service work overseas. Being on the list would make these companies ineligible for federal grants or guaranteed loans, would require overseas call centers to disclose their locations to customers, and would require them to comply with U.S. consumers’ request to be transferred to a service agent physically located in the U.S.

“Our number one priority in Congress is protecting and creating American jobs,” McKinley said. “Plain and simple, we should not be rewarding companies for moving jobs offshore.”