Sen. Niezgodski has introduced SB 51 which would disqualify call center operators for grants if they relocate their operations to a foreign country and imposes a civil penalty on a call center operator receiving certain state grants if the operator doesn’t notify the Indiana Economic Development Commission 120 days before the relocation. It also requires that “all call center and customer service work” done for state agencies in the executive be performed entirely within the state of Indiana.
There are a number of problems with this legislation. First of all, I don’t see that call center or customer service work is defined anywhere. There is also an effort to carve out larger call centers by referencing aggregate hours worked by employees that I don’t think quite succeeds with what can be a surprisingly slippery drafting problem. Second, how much are we spending in state grant money to support call centers? Is it enough to make this legislation worth the effort? Third, why the narrow focus on call centers? Are these really the jobs that we want to make a particular priority in Indiana? I’m tempted to take issue with the foreign country provision, but there might be some Commerce Clause issues if this legislation was triggered by a call center moving to a different state within the U.S.
This feels like one of those bills that’s trying to address a very specific situation, but I don’t know the back story.
I wonder if the wrong person got miffed when contacting a call center for information and the person answering had an Indian accent and couldn’t answer the question. Maybe with this law, the same Indian will move to this state and work at our call center.