Welcome everyone to the webinar kicking off CWA’s action for International Customer

Service Month.

This year we are doing things a little differently. This year, we are using the month to

mobilize call center workers to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Here is the

plan:

Call center jobs are trade-able. For most of us at CWA, bargaining for improved living

standards and job security in a sector that can shift work overseas with the flip of a switch

has been an enormous challenge. While technology and globalization may have created this

challenge, deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership will exacerbate our struggle. This short

presentation will show why. At the end, I hope you will join in the action to protect our

jobs.

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been called the largest and most dangerous trade

agreement you’ve never heard of.

“Never heard of” because the talks have been held in secret, and even though the talks have

been going on for about three years, not a word of the text of the agreement has been

released. What we do know about the TPP has been leaked to the media.

“Dangerous” because our particular concern is about jobs. Our jobs are already threatened

by offshoring, we believe the TPP will only make worse.

Why are the trade talks secret? Senator Elizabeth Warren told a group that she actually had

supporters of the deal say to her that the talks have to be kept secret, “because if the

American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.”

It is possible that legislation will be introduced in the lame duck session of Congress, after

the elections, to “fast track” the TPP and other trade agreements. That is why we must

begin now to tell our Members of Congress that the TPP is not good for our jobs and to

demand that they say no to fast tracking the TPP.

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We all know that our jobs are already at risk.

The Department of Labor has identified 160 service sector jobs that it considers trade-able –

able to be offshored. There are 30 million workers in those 160 jobs – about a quarter of the

entire U.S. service sector. DOL identified customer service representative as one of the

most vulnerable jobs.

Other firms have made projections:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has data that shows 200,000 U.S. call center jobs have

already been lost between 2006 and 2012.

Forrester Research projects that 3.4 million jobs would be offshored between 2003 and

2015.

The Hackett Group estimates that over one million IT, HR, finance and purchasing jobs in

large U.S. companies will be offshored between 2002 and 2016.

The bottom line – our jobs are already trade-able.

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The TPP will make a bad situation worse. Rather than boosting our living standards or

making our jobs more secure, the TPP includes a number of incentives for corporations to

offshore jobs.

One section of the TPP, about investment, expands corporate rights making it safer to invest

offshore in low-wage countries.

Another section of the TPP would prohibit countries from requiring that a foreign firm set

up a domestic operation in order to provide services. So foreign firms could provide

services without employing U.S. workers.

Both these provisions are tailor-made to facilitate offshoring of call center work.

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The TPP would Allow foreign corporations to sue governments over nearly any law or

policy that a corporation argues would limit their “expected future profits.”

These cases are called investor-state dispute cases because investors, meaning corporations,

are allowed to bring the states – meaning the governments that are signatories to the trade

pact – to court.

Cases are heard not in domestic courts but in private international tribunals composed of

three private lawyers from the signatory countries. The domestic court systems are

completely by-passed.

Big corporations such as Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical have launched more than 450

cases against 89 governments through similar provisions in other trade pacts.

There are $12 billion in pending ISDS claims relating to environmental, public health, and

transportation policies. For example:

-- A French company, Veolia, has challenged Egypt’s minimum wage

increase.

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-- A U.S. Company, Philip Morris, has challenged Australia’s cigarette

packaging law requiring warning labels.

For call center workers, it would mean the end of the Call Center Bill introduced by Tim

Bishop. That bill would allow consumers to request a U.S. based customer service agent

instead of one working out of a foreign call center. You can imagine the suits that bill would

attract from foreign call center companies.

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Here is legislative process as we currently understand it. Negotiation with TPP participating

countries are ongoing. There are still some serious hang-ups among the countries – most recently between

Japan and the U.S. Japan wants to retain protections for its agriculture sector and the U.S. wants into their

markets.

Next, we will see some request for Fast Track authority. Trade deals have to be legislated under special rules

because the deals are made among the trading partners. The Fast Track legislation sets out the special rules.

Basically, it will set a time line for debate and consideration, establish that Congress will have no authority to

change or amend the agreement, and require a yes or no, up or down vote. That could happen as early as

November in the lame duck session, but perhaps in the early days of the new Congress, in January.

The vote on Fast Track is critical. It will grease the skids for passage of the TPP and other trade deals.

The vote on the actual trade deal will depend on the terms of the fast track legislation.

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All in all, the Trans-Pacific partnership is not good for workers or consumers.

It is good for Wall Street but bad for Main Street.

It gives foreign corporations the power to challenge our democratically enacted policies.

It will open the door to further offshoring of call center jobs.

Call Center workers need to fight back.

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The action is simple. A no-brainer. Sign a Post Card or make a call to your Representative.

Let him or her know they should stop the TPP and vote against ‘Fast Track’. It is about

saving our jobs.

-- Distribute cards, collect signed cards.

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