Trade Court Upholds Labor's Move to Deny Trade Adjustment Aid to Former AT&T Call Center Workers

The Court of International Trade in a June 30 opinion upheld the Labor Department's decision to deny a group of former AT&T call center workers trade adjustment assistance, ruling that the department "(finally) gets it right," following two previous remand orders. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that Labor adequately explained the evidence it relied on, asserting that the department appropriately relied on certified information to declare that the company did not offshore the plaintiffs' call center jobs.

The union launched its case when it was denied aid in the matter of a series of call centers that were allegedly outsourced to foreign countries. Former call center employees from Kalamazoo, Michigan; Indianapolis; and Appleton, Wisconsin, gave Labor evidence that the call center jobs were relocated to Mexico and Jamaica. In May, the trade court initially remanded the case over Labor's failure to look at the plaintiffs' evidence (see 2105040032).

During the remand proceeding, Hope Kinglock, a certifying officer with Labor's Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance, looked at the evidence and continued to find that the employees weren't entitled to the aid (see 2107230031). In the case's second opinion, Baker said Kinglock's reconsideration of the evidence addressed this deficiency in Labor's original determination. However, the judge still remanded the case over Labor's reliance on unverified email communications (see 2109230075). In its remand results, Labor further defended its reliance on the email communications (see 2203180040).

The court then upheld Labor's redetermination, ruling that it "belatedly answers the question the court asked twice before" on the information from AT&T that Labor relied on to deny the trade adjustment aid claims. The agency said it relied on AT&T's certified information establishing that the company did not shift services directly competitive with the plaintiffs' jobs to foreign countries. Labor said it used AT&T's noncertified information, such as the email communications, as either "clarificatory or corroborative," and this was good enough for Baker.

"[The second opinion] explained that Labor’s original, reconsideration, and first remand determinations conflated the analysis of AT&T’s certified and noncertified information such that the court could not understand the precise basis for the Department’s denial of benefits," the opinion said. "The second remand determination solves that problem, as Labor reasonably explained that it did not rely on the company’s noncertified information. Thus, substantial evidence supports the Department’s determination that AT&T’s certified information, when weighed against the workers’ evidence, establishes that their jobs were not offshored. In view of that conclusion, the court need not analyze Labor’s explanation for why it found the noncertified information reliable."

(Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc., through Communications Workers of America Local 4123 v. U.S. Secretary of Labor, Slip Op. 22-76, CIT #22-00075, dated 06/30/22, Judge M. Miller Baker. Attorneys: Bernd Janzen of Akin Gump for plaintiff; Brian Boynton for defendant Secretary of Labor)