Protection Of Colorado Call Center Jobs

The bill requires a business to notify the office of economic development (OED) of any plans to terminate customer service employee positions and employees who are employed by or work on behalf of a call center in those positions in the state and relocate those positions outside of the United States. The bill specifies that a violation of the requirement to notify results in a civil penalty that the state's attorney general may recover.

The bill requires the OED to maintain and make public a list of businesses that have terminated and relocated customer service employee positions outside of the United States. The bill provides a method for a business to remove their name from the list after a certain period of time.

The bill specifies that a public entity may not award or provide a public subsidy to a business that has its name on the list maintained by the OED, but allows a waiver for this limitation in certain specific circumstances.

The bill requires a business to ensure that each customer service employee who communicates with a customer on behalf of the business:

• Enables the customer to speak to an employee of the business on whose behalf the call center is communicating with the customer;
• Transfers the call to a person in the state if the customer service employee is not in the state; and
• Discloses to the customer:
• The state and country where the customer service employee is located;
• The customer service employee's employee number; and
• The name of the customer service employee's employer.

The bill specifies that a public entity must give preference to a business that does not appear on the list of businesses maintained by the OED when awarding a contract for services.

The bill requires all call center services performed for a public entity to be performed in the state by customer service employees employed in the state.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)