Obamacare Call Center Baits-and-Switches Workers Into Part-Time Jobs Without Health Coverage
From the Department of You… Just… Can't… Make… This… Up comes word that a California call center — one of three established in the state to help promote the Affordable Care Act and answer questions about the new law — is largely staffed by part-time workers who receive no benefits. That means, the people touting Obamacare will receive no health coverage under the scheme.
From Contra Costa Times:
CONCORD—Earlier this year, Contra Costa County won the right to run a health care call center, where workers will answer questions to help implement the president's Affordable Care Act. Area politicians called the 200-plus jobs it would bring to the region an economic coup.
Now, with two months to go before the Concord operation opens to serve the public, information has surfaced that about half the jobs are part-time, with no health benefits—a stinging disappointment to workers and local politicians who believed the positions would be full-time.
The Contra Costa County supervisor whose district includes the call center called the whole hiring process—which attracted about 7,000 applicants—a "comedy of errors."
What makes this situation even more comical, though not necessarily for the people working at the call center, is that many of the center's staff "left other full-time jobs for the call center positions," only to be invited to very special chats once they were committed.
Orientation and training started in July, but stopped on the afternoon of July 18, when employees were told they would have private meetings about their positions, the employee said.
"It reminded me of that George Clooney movie where he goes around the country firing people ('Up in the Air')," the employee said. "The woman said, 'I know you were led to believe you would be full time, but things have changed. … You are actually 'part-time intermittent.'"
Perhaps "part-time intermittent" is a euphemism for "a victim of bureaucratic irony."
Follow this story and more at Reason 24/7.
Spice up your blog or Website with Reason 24/7 news and Reason articles. You can get the widgets here. If you have a story that would be of interest to Reason's readers please let us know by emailing the 24/7 crew at 24_7@reason.com, or tweet us stories at @reason247.
