WASHINGTON — Congressmen Tim Bishop (D-NY) and Walter Jones (R-NC) have demanded that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) immediately suspend a program to train workers in the Philippines for jobs in English-speaking call centers, as reported this week in Information Week. In recent years, the Philippines has become a magnet for customer service call centers outsourced by companies in the United States and other English-speaking countries to reduce operating costs.

In 2010, Bishop compelled USAID to abandon a high-tech training program for outsourcing industry workers in Sri Lanka, with the agency committing to “conduct a review to ensure the project will not take any jobs away from Americans.”

“I believe it was reasonable to conclude from that statement that your agency’s outsourcing training program was terminated, particularly in light of President Obama’s ‘insourcing’ initiative announced earlier this year. Therefore, I was shocked to learn that USAID has used taxpayer dollars to invest in outsourcing training programs in the Philippines at the expense of American workers,”  Bishop and Jones wrote in a letter Wednesday to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah demanding the immediate discontinuation of the Philippines training program.

In the letter, Bishop and Jones committed to using “every legislative option available to permanently prohibit USAID from engaging in such practices in the future,” should the agency’s response be insufficient.

Bishop noted that over 4.5 million Americans currently work in call centers but over 500,000 call center jobs have been outsourced from the United States to foreign nations since 2007. Bishop is lead sponsor of the U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act (HR 3596), to bar American companies that outsource call center jobs from receiving federal grants and loans for five years. The bill has gained 116 bipartisan cosponsors and continues to gain momentum in the House as identity theft and sale of customers’ personal information by call center employees in India and the Philippines have been exposed in stunning new reports by the British and Australian media.

“I support the international development mission of USAID but my top priority is protecting American jobs and American taxpayers,” said Bishop. “I anticipate working closely with USAID in a bipartisan manner to ensure that none of its programs overseas will hurt workers here at home.”

The Bishop/Jones letter to USAID is available at: http://timbishop.house.gov/uploads/Letter%20to%20USAID-%20Call%20Centers%20FINAL.pdf