CWA Cheers Committee Passage of Save New Jersey Call Center Jobs Act
For Immediate Release: March 12, 2012
CWA Cheers Committee Passage of Save New Jersey Call Center Jobs Act
Bill Would Require Public Disclosure of Outsourcing and Bar Companies like Verizon who Ship NJ Jobs Overseas from Receiving State Tax Breaks
TRENTON– The Communications Workers of America hailed today the passage of the Save New Jersey Call Center Jobs Act (A- 2651, sponsored by Assembly members Connie Wagner and Timothy Eustace), in a key Assembly committee. The bill would require public disclosure by companies like Verizon who ship New Jersey jobs overseas, and bar such companies from receiving tax breaks and subsidies from the State of New Jersey.
Seth Hahn, New Jersey Political and Legislative Director of the CWA, testified before the Assembly today that: “New Jersey has an unemployment rate above 9%. Hundreds of thousands are looking for work, and yet we are allowing companies who do business with the state of New Jersey and who take hundreds of millions of dollars from New Jersey taxpayers to ship jobs overseas that American workers are ready, willing and able to do.”
The bill would affect companies like Verizon, which has made $33.4 billion in profit over the past five years, and paid its CEO $54 million in 2009 and 2010. Verizon has received $113 million from New Jersey in subsidies since 1998, with the promise of creating jobs. But Verizon has cut the number of New Jersey call center jobs in half over the past decade, recently announced a plan to lay off nearly 400 more union workers in north Jersey, and has sent thousands of DSL call center jobs to countries like India.
Sharon Adamo, President of CWA Local 1023 testified that, “We represent 725 call center workers now, but our local had 3,000 workers ten years ago. The people we represent work very hard and it can be very difficult work, all day on the phone and no break between calls. But it’s still a good middle-class job for people to have and be able to raise their families. We see unemployment and people without jobs in New Jersey and it just doesn’t make sense that companies doing work for the state and receiving money from the state don’t have to create jobs here.”
Beth Cornwall, the President of CWA Local 1022, testified that, “Our members simply can’t understand why a company making billions of dollars in profit and doing this much business inNew Jersey says they can’t afford to hire workers inAmerica and they need to send the call center work overseas. If companies like Verizon won’t invest inNew Jersey,New Jersey needs to stop investing in Verizon.”
A recent study by the Communications Workers of America found that outsourcing call center jobs to foreign countries can present security risks to private consumer data, as well as impact American communities and job seekers.
- 30 -