(The Press-Enterprise posted the following article by Jonathan Shikes on its website on July 25.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Amtrak has given 191 part-time workers at its Riverside call center six months to decide whether to go full time or find jobs elsewhere.
The passenger railway also told employees in a July 21 memo that it is taking bids from outside vendors for the reservations and sales jobs now handled by call centers in Riverside and Philadelphia and hopes to have a company in place early next year.
Despite the change, no full-time call center agents will lose their jobs, the memo stressed. Instead, Amtrak will begin outsourcing the work as existing employees retire or quit, known as attrition. Amtrak’s rate of attrition is 10 percent a year.
“Amtrak now faces a situation where 89 percent of its call center cost is labor, and this labor cost is among the highest in the industry,” the memo says.
A total of 588 people work at Amtrak’s Western Reservation Sales Office, 7920 Lindbergh Drive, in the Orangecrest neighborhood. There are 488 people at Amtrak’s only other call center, in Philadelphia, but only six are part-time.
To seek an outside vendor, Amtrak’s contract with the Transportation Communications International Union, which represents most call center workers, requires it to give part-time employees six months to decide whether to go full time.
The move wasn’t unexpected.
The publicly subsidized railway, which is seeking $1.6 billion this year, has been under fire from President Bush and Republican lawmakers, who would like to cut funding for the organization or make it operate as a private entity.
Earlier this year, Amtrak told Congress it was considering contracting out maintenance, on-board food service and call center operations to save money.
The move prompted an angry response from Democratic senators Robert Byrd, of West Virginia, and Patty Murphy, of Washington, who introduced an amendment to Amtrak’s funding bill that would block it from sending some of its jobs overseas.
On Thursday, the amendment, also backed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee and will next go to the full Senate.
The amendment didn’t address third-party U.S. vendors, however, and a Byrd spokeswoman, Cindy Huber, said the office would have no comment on that.
Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black confirmed the railway is soliciting outside vendors but wouldn’t say whether any were from overseas.
He also said complex transactions, like special group sales, international sales and complaints, would remain with Amtrak call centers even after an outside vendor is hired. Currently, 20 percent of Amtrak agents handle these functions.
He added that all full-time employees “will be protected, as long as they hold that position, from losing their jobs as a result of outsourcing.”
Rita Herricks, a 15-year Amtrak veteran, is skeptical of the pledge.
“They need to be honest with us,” said Herricks, 38, of Nuevo. “If Amtrak is going to outsource call center jobs, it’s going to include every call center employee.”
A full-time worker earning $19.73 an hour, Herricks said workers like herself are lucky to make the wages they do, and she wishes Amtrak had tried to negotiate with its employees before going to the “extreme” of finding an outside vendor.
“Who is to say we wouldn’t be willing to take a pay cut to keep our jobs?” she asked