CWA: 45 Congress Members Demand CMS Protect Maximus Call Center Workers Answering Affordable Care Act Calls

WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The Communications Workers of America issued the following news release:

After the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued guidance mandating that call centers contracting with CMS force employees to work in-person, rather than telework, U.S. Representatives Mark Pocan (WI-02) and Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), sent a letter today co-signed by 43 other members of Congress to CMS Administrator Seema Verma demanding she reverse the policy. In the letter, the Representatives call for remote work policies to be laid out, full paid sick leave and robust workplace safety policies.

CMS' blanket guidance provides no pathway to creating teleworking opportunities for these essential workers and puts their lives at risk. Maximus, the company that CMS contracts with for these services, has already been forced to close call centers in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana due to COVID-19 outbreaks at the centers in these states.

"We shouldn't have to put our families, ourselves, and our communities at risk by coming to work when other critical government services like the Social Security Administration have moved to telework," said Monica Harris, who works at a Maximus call center in Chester, VA and is organizing with her coworkers to join CWA. "Maximus did not even issue real guidance on social distancing until April 2, despite having to close several call centers for sanitizing prior to that. This is why workers have been calling on Maximus CEO Bruce Caswell to meet with our CWA organizing committee immediately to work with us on implementing safety guidelines and make sure workers are able to consistently take advantage of paid leave to stop this epidemic."

"From the second she was sworn in, CMS Administrator Verma has had her foot on the throat of these frontline call center workers, who spend their days helping older Americans, low-income Americans, and Americans with disabilities to get the health care they need to survive," said Rep. Schakowsky. "Under any other Administration, this might have been an oversight, something we could fix with a phone call. But as is always the case with the Trump Administration, the politically-motivated cruelty is a feature, not a bug, of their policies."

"The cruel irony of forcing call center workers to come to work in unsafe conditions, while they help people nationwide on Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA during a pandemic, is astounding," said Rep. Pocan. "This administration has been an enemy to workers in all industries and the workers it contracts with receive no better treatment. These workers are performing essential tasks--supporting our nation's healthcare system--and they are being forced to work in unsafe conditions, with no protections or plans to eventually telework. CMS must do better since Maximus has already proven they will not independently implement common sense policies for remote work, paid sick leave, job protection for missing work during this pandemic and actual workplace safety standards. Anything less is actively threatening the health and well-being of each of these workers and their families. This sort of cruelty has an inevitable end, and this administration will have the families of sick call center workers to answer to."

"With these critical health and safety concerns, it's more important than ever that workers have a voice at Maximus -- and that the company have an open dialogue with those demanding that voice," said CWA President Chris Shelton. "Refusing to engage in dialogue with workers is always bad policy, but especially bad policy during a pandemic. The lack of communication puts people at unnecessary risk. Maximus needs to meet with the workers' organizing committee and discuss policies that will keep workers, their families, and their communities safe."

The letter was co-signed by Representatives Deb Haaland, Jesus G. "Chuy" Garcia, Rashida Tlaib, Wm. Lacy Clay, Andre Carson, Alan Lowenthal, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Ilhan Omar, Darren Soto, Steven Horsford, Jamie Raskin, Katherine Clark, Nydia M. Velazquez, Pramila Jayapal, Rosa DeLauro, Jared Huffman, Yvette D. Clarke, Tony Cardenas, Peter A. DeFazio, Bill Pascrell, Jr., Linda T. Sanchez, Tim Ryan, Andy Levin, Joseph P. Kennedy, III, Joe Neguse, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Donald Norcross, James P. McGovern, Danny K. Davis, Emanuel Cleaver, II, Bill Foster, Elliot Engel, Daniel T. Kildee, Bennie G. Thompson, Paul D. Tonko, Jerrold Nadler, David N. Cicilline, Sheila Jackson Lee, Marcy Kaptur, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Bobby L. Rush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

See the full letter here (https://pocan.house.gov/sites/pocan.house.gov/files/documents/Congressional%20Letter%20to%20CMS%20on%20Call%20Center%20Worker%20Safety%204.9.20.pdf).