July 20, 2004

The Honorable Judd Gregg The Honorable Frank Wolf

Chairman Chairman

Senate Commerce, Justice, State, and House Commerce, Justice, State and

the Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee the Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee

U.S. Senate U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20510 Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Ernest F. Hollings The Honorable Jose Serrano

Ranking Member Ranking Member

Senate Commerce, Justice, State, and House Commerce, Justice, State and

the Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee the Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee

U.S. Senate U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20510 Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairmen Gregg and Wolf and Ranking Members Hollings and Serrano:

The undersigned organizations write to urge that your subcommittees include restrictive language in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s appropriation bill, which would prevent the agency from creating a privatized call center and reducing field offices. These two initiatives, which are encompassed in EEOC’s $5 million request for “Workforce Repositioning,” would harm the ability of the agency to carry out its important mission. Forty years ago, pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress established the EEOC to prevent and eliminate discrimination in the workplace. However, even though discrimination persists today, the EEOC’s Chair Cari Dominguez is asking Congress for funding to be used to diminish the agency’s quality of service and physical presence throughout the country. Also, the EEOC is diminishing services to Federal workers, by instituting a triage system in its Washington Field Office, which denies employees the right to a hearing and to discover evidence to support their claims of discrimination.

The EEOC’s proposed national call center is bad for your constituents, both employers and employees, for three reasons. First , it will hinder rather than help individuals in filing complaints and getting accurate answers to pursue their claim. Presently, experienced EEOC professionals, including investigators, mediators, and attorneys, respond to calls from private and Federal sector employees regarding allegations of discrimination in the workplace. The EEOC would like to steer questions instead to privatized contract operators, who will have only six to seven days training in EEOC laws. The logical result will be that callers will receive inaccurate information or will be subjected to an unnecessary layer of aggravation, when the operator cannot answer the question and transfers the call to the EEOC. We are all familiar with calling a customer service line, being transferred around, waiting on hold, sometimes being disconnected, and often not getting an answer to our question. Are we going to trust legal rights to such a system?

The second reason the call center is misguided is that it will contract out inherently governmental work, which is capably performed now by Federal employees. Even worse, the EEOC is not allowing Federal employees to compete for the call center contract. Instead the EEOC is falsely claiming that this is “new work,” even though its employees have responded to calls from the public since the agency opened its doors four decades ago.

Finally, paying for a costly call center siphons money from the EEOC’s already tight budget, which would be better devoted to replacing the three hundred employees who have been lost during a three year hiring freeze that Chair Dominguez imposed upon her appointment. With the likely expectation that EEOC will at best be allocated no more than inflationary increases, how will it pay for a call center without making changes in operations that will result in reduced services to the public? It is counterintuitive to pay for a costly call center to do what EEOC staff are now capably performing, without added expense to the budget.

Likewise, there is no justification for EEOC’s plan to collapse 51 field offices into 10 or 11 mega offices. At a recent American Bar Association meeting, EEOC Commissioner Paul Miller stated: “I don't understand how the plan to designate 10 or 11 district offices as 'mega‑offices' either strengthens our mission or addresses the agency's funding issue." The undersigned organizations agree. Community-based offices can better serve the public, because they are more accessible and are more knowledgeable regarding local issues of concern. Conversely, reducing offices means reducing services to your constituents.

Therefore, we are requesting that you continue to support the EEOC by providing it adequate funds for its mission, most crucially for hiring, in order to restore the three hundred positions which have been lost during the hiring freeze. Additionally, we strenuously urge you to include restrictive language in the EEOC’s appropriation bill which will prevent the agency from wasting resources on a national call center and diminishing its presence by closing or downsizing offices. Finally, despite a public notice in the Federal Register stating that a date is still “to be determined” for Federal Sector reform, the EEOC has implemented substantive regulatory changes in its Washington Field Office that short circuit the right to a hearing and discovery. Please call on Chair Dominguez to abide by the regulatory process and halt these premature reforms.

Sincerely,

American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

Broward County Commission on the Status of Women

Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association

Hawaii Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association

Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin

Labor Council for Latin American Advancement

Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association

Minnesota Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association

National Council of EEOC Locals, No. 216, AFGE/AFL-CIO

National Organization for Women

New Hampshire Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association

9 to 5, National Association of Working Women

People for the American Way

Public Interest Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin

Southern Poverty Law Center

West Virginia Employment Lawyers

Wisconsin Employment Lawyers Association