To protect American jobs and discourage outsourcing, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer would like to inflict limits and charges on companies that will outsource some operations to other countries. In addition to this, he filed a bill forcing companies to inform their customers when their calls are being transferred outside of the US. These companies will then be charged for the calls they transferred to another location.

In Schumer's statement quoted by Reuters news agency, the said bill will not only serve to maintain call center jobs currently in the US, but also provide a reason for companies that have already outsourced jobs to bring them back. Moreover, the bill also imposes a $0.25 excise tax on any customer service call transferred to an agent in a foreign location.

And with this, although nothing is confirmed, Philippine-based contact centers are threatened because if passed, the bill might force American firms to stop outsourcing, if the charges to be imposed will be too high so as to offset their cost savings from outsourcing.

The probable effects of the said bill are now being analyzed by the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP). According to Jojo Uligan, corporate secretary and executive director of CCAP, American policy makers should also open their eyes to the reality that their constituents no longer want to get on these call center jobs.

At the moment, no one knows what will happen but of course, we cannot just allow this since many Filipinos are working in call centers. The attention of the government must be called to help the industry surpass the problems might come if US legislators passed the said bill. [via panamacallcenters.com]