Dear Chair Wolf:

I am writing to you as a member of the National Council of EEOC Locals, No. 216, because 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.

The call center is a bad idea because it is already diverting resources from our operations and it will result in poor customer service.  During our ongoing three-year hiring freeze almost three hundred jobs have been lost at every level of the agency. Cases are being transferred out of the local areas in which they should be investigated to other offices, to cover for the losses. There is not money for staff training. The agency delays recommended promotions to employees who are admittedly accomplishing higher-graded duties. Employees have more work to do and not enough hours in the day, which risks overtime violations. Attorneys, mediators, and investigators lose time they could be helping the public, while they function at their own secretaries.  Jobs will be further impacted when the agency steers the public to a call center, rather than EEOC’s 51 field offices, which the agency intends to collapse into 10 “mega” offices.

Responding to the public’s civil rights concerns is an inherently governmental function. If the agency wants to enhance the ability of staff to do their jobs, including advising the public of their rights, then replenish the staff we have lost.  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. 

We thank you for your opposition to this sort of thoughtless privatization effort in the past, and the concerns you raised at EEOC’s oversight hearing. The CJS mark-up is a crucial step that will determine the EEOC's future path. 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,