Labor Department Continues to Deny Trade Adjustment Aid to AT&T Call Center Workers

The Labor Department continued to find that a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees are not entitled to trade adjustment assistance for outsourced jobs in July 22 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. On May 4, the court remanded the case to the agency after Judge M. Miller Baker found that Labor failed to discuss or even reference the union's evidence of why the trade adjustment case was warranted in its determination (see 2105040032) (Communications Workers of America Local 4123, on behalf of Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc. v. United States Secretary of Labor, CIT #20-00075).

In the ignored evidence, former call center employees from Kalamazoo, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Appleton, Wisconsin gave evidence that the call center jobs were relocated to Mexico and Jamaica. Hope Kinglock, a certifying officer with Labor's Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance, looked at the evidence and continued to hold that the employees were not entitled to the aid.

"With respect to Section 222(a)(2)(B) of the Act, the investigation(s) revealed that the workers’ firm did not shift the supply of call center, billing, or network operations services, or like or directly competitive services, to a foreign country or acquire call center, billing, or network operations services or like or directly competitive services from a foreign country," Kinglock said. "AT&T officials were required to address allegations that such work had been shifted to foreign countries, and confirmed that the work performed by workers at the subject locations remained in the United States."