I sent this to my congressman. Any suggestions? I may send other copies to other government officials. Feel free to use if you like.
This year, AT&T has had several partnerships with large outsourcing companies including Tech Mahindra, IBM, and Accenture. As a condition, AT&T employees are "rebadged" to these other companies. Rebadging means that employment is being terminated with AT&T in favor of a negotiated job offer with one of the global outsourcing firms. Severance payouts and unemployment compensation are not options as they are offering legally suitable employment. If we refuse, we get nothing. However, many affected employees have ethical reasons for not wanting to join offshoring contracting companies. Furthermore, from discussions and meetings it appears that this is affecting disproportionately large numbers of older (40+) workers. It seems like this is a way for AT&T to get rid of older workers without any kind of reporting requirement or government oversight.
Although these companies are offering a one year negotiated employment with similar pay and benefits as existing with AT&T, the implicit understanding is that we will eventually be required to train our H1B/Offshore replacements and our pay and benefits will be reduced. This also resets the clock on any severance payouts.
I am requesting that your office investigates this employment practice that is becoming increasingly common. I would like to see more protections for employees. Specifically:
- Training H1B or offshore employees should never be a condition of employment.
- Rebadging to a global outsourcing company should not be deemed suitable employment if the employee has moral and ethical reasons for not wanting to join.
- Expansion of the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act to cover employees being forcibly rebadged. The company should be required to release ages and job titles of employees in the rebadging process as they would for layoffs.
I appreciate your time.