I am writing to you as a member of the National Council of EEOC Locals, No. 216, because I understand that on June 16, 2004, the Commerce, Justice and State Appropriations subcommittee will be “marking up” the EEOC’s budget request. Please do not include in the mark up any appropriation that would allow the EEOC to start up a national call center and to reduce field offices.

Chair Dominguez claims that no jobs will be lost due to the call center. This is not true. Four hundred jobs have already been lost. When Chair Dominguez was appointed, her first action was to institute a hiring freeze, which is now strangling the agency. Cases are being transferred out of the local areas in which they should be investigated to other offices, in order to make up for all the holes in staff created through attrition.  Instead of replenishing staffing levels, the Chair chooses to fill these vacancies with telemarketers, who with only six days of EEO training will be dealing with civil rights inquiries from the public.  Jobs will be further impacted when the agency steers the public to a call center, rather than EEOC’s 51 field offices, which she intends to collapse into 10 mega offices.

Enforcing this country’s civil rights statutes is an inherently governmental function. Since the agency opened its doors, EEOC employees have been capably responding to the public’s civil rights concerns.  Taking these calls and pretty often resolving those calls the first time is the job of professional staff. If the agency wants to enhance the ability of professional staff to do their jobs, including advising the public of their rights, then free the agency from personnel ceilings which have deprived the agency of much needed clerical staff.  Instead of using a much needed budgetary increase to contract out, this money should be invested in-house, where our employees know how to do the job better than contractors with six days of training. EEOC employees should at least be given the opportunity to compete for work they are presently performing.  

The CJS mark-up is a crucial step that will determine the EEOC's future path- either as an effective civil rights law enforcement agency or a gutted shell propped up by private telemarketers, who are not invested in our mission. Our members request restrictive language that prevents valued dollars from going to Workforce Repositioning, in the form of a privatized national contact center or a reduction of  field offices.

Sincerely,