Tulsa call center and workers get wires crossed

Over the past couple of years, call centers have made a big splash in Tulsa, with news about good jobs and good pay. <br/><br/>One company in particular, Decision One, added hundreds of jobs. But now

Tuesday, February 7th 2006, 1:00 pm

By: News On 6

Over the past couple of years, call centers have made a big splash in Tulsa, with news about good jobs and good pay.

One company in particular, Decision One, added hundreds of jobs. But now that they've been sold to a company called Alorica, and workers are complaining they're being lied to.

News on 6 reporter Steve Berg explains how the workers and the call center got their wires crossed.

When Decision One was sold to Alorica back in December, workers like "Gina" say they were skeptical. "Cause we kept wondering is everything going to be the same, is anything going to change."

In particular, Gina says they were worried about a pay raise that Decision One had promised them after she and about 80 other workers were promoted to a higher job level. She says they asked their managers, who had also made the transition from Decision One to Alorica. "Their words verbatim were everything will stay the same."

Gina and the others say they took training and were promoted in November. Alorica took over in early December. And they say they asked about the raises every pay period since then. "They said, from different people in the management department, they say yes, your raises are still going to go through, they're still going to go through." But Gina says instead of the approximate $2 an hour raise they were told they would get, Alorica is giving an approximate 22-cents per hour raise.

Unfortunately the workers didn't have anything in writing and an Alorica spokesperson says the company doesn't know where the workers got the idea they were getting the larger raise. "It's not right and it's not fair. It's not even our managers. It's none of their fault, because they're working for Alorica too. An Alorica representative will not come down and talk with us themselves, only manager-wise. They won't talk with us."

Whatever the mix-up, it was big enough that Gina says, nearly 7 dozen workers all thought they were getting a bigger raise.

Alorica emailed the News on 6 and said they can't speak about what kind of arrangements the workers had with their "former" employer. But the workers say their managers were still telling them they would get the larger raise, even "after" Alorica took over.