States Introduce Bills Penalizing Overseas Call Centers

In December 2011 we reported on a federal bill that would make companies that relocate call centers to locations outside of the United States ineligible for federal grant or guaranteed loan programs for five years. Under this bill (the U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act , HR 3596), any company that (1) employs either 50 or more full-time call center employees, or 50 or more call center employees who work at least 1,500 aggregate hours per week (excluding overtime) and (2) closes a call center or ceases the operations of at least 30 percent of a call center's call volume and relocates those operations to a location outside of the United States, must provide at least 120 days' notice to the Secretary of Labor prior to any such relocation. The Act would require the Secretary of Labor to maintain a publicly available list of these companies, and any company on this list would be ineligible for any direct or indirect federal grants or guaranteed loan programs