Workers Strike at Medicare, ACA Call Centers

Federally contracted call center workers who provide customer service for Medicare and Affordable Care Act health plans went on strike on Monday over poor working conditions, including insufficient sick leave and limited bathroom breaks.

Employees of Maximus, the nation's largest federal call center contractor, held a two-hour picket and a day-long strike Monday at four locations: Bogalusa, Louisiana; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Chester, Virginia; and London, Kentucky. Workers partnered with the AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) to negotiate with Maximus.

They said increased paid sick time and more flexible bathroom break policies will better allow them to care for themselves and their families as they facilitate access to healthcare for other Americans.

"I love my job. I love helping the consumers and making sure I assist them with their issues because it may be a small issue to us, but to them it could be a life-changing issue," Dae Mark, 22, who works at the Maximus call center in Hattiesburg, told MedPage Today. "And I don't want to let our consumers suffer due to how our supervisors and managers treat us."

Mark described a system where bathroom breaks are limited to 6 minutes, with pay deducted for every minutes she and her coworkers are off the clock past that time.

"With us working onsite and how big the building is on the inside, as well as the people-traffic within the workplace, it takes us about 2 to 3 minutes to even get to the bathroom," she said. Employees must log their bathroom break with a code at their desk and then mark it again when they come back. If they exceed the 6 minutes, they get a text message reminding them to deduct it from their time card, Mark said.

During a virtual town hall Monday afternoon, Mark said she has disabilities, as do many of her coworkers, and that she was terminated previously from Maximus for breaking what she described as an unnecessarily complicated attendance policy. She said she nearly became homeless before she was rehired last October.

Mark also said the company initially only approved a day of sick leave for COVID-19, but has increased that to 24 hours, or the equivalent of 3 days, since staff started organizing.

Still, she said, the CDC -- which contracts with Maximus along with CMS -- calls for 5 days of isolation with COVID-19. In order to meet that, Mark said, employees would have to use their limited accrued leave or take leave without pay.

Another Maximus worker, Brenna Rowell, said that as a single mother of a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, finding childcare can be a challenge, but if she misses more work she could be fired.

"I like helping the people that we serve and I try to never miss work because I need every dollar I can [get] to support my children," she said at the town hall. "If I'm missing a day of work, it's because I have no other choice. It's either because I'm sick or I don't have a babysitter. What else am I supposed to do in that situation?"

Workers at the call centers are mostly women and people of color. A statement from the AFL-CIO noted that the Hattiesburg site, for example, is around 81% female and 91% people of color. Workers make around $35,000 a year, compared with the $61,120 a year that MIT's "Living Wage Calculator" for that area considers to be a living wage before taxes for an adult with one child.

A flyer that Maximus workers handed out to prospective hires at a Maximus job event in July said workers were paid almost 40% less than other federal call center workers, like those at the IRS. The healthcare plans offered by Maximus had deductibles of $5,000 for family coverage, and increasing out-of-pocket costs, according to the flyer.

Eileen Rivera, vice president of public relations and communications at Maximus, said in an email to MedPage Today that employees can take two 15-minute breaks and a half-hour lunch break during 8-hour days, and request bathroom breaks any time.

"No one is denied a break; no one is shamed for taking a break," she wrote. Rivera also sent a job posting for a customer service representative position at $16.38 an hour.

But Maximus worker Jessyka Davis said at the town hall that unexpectedly long calls can eat up those break times, which are scheduled ahead of time, and that workers can be penalized for taking a break outside of those times without approval.

Also speaking at the town hall, Sara Steffens, a CWA secretary-treasurer, said: "Throughout the pandemic, you all provided essential life-saving services, but Maximus has failed to treat you with the respect you deserve. The company's restrictive and demeaning attendance and bathroom break policies are totally unacceptable. And by going on strike, you were sending a clear message you were fed up -- that your health and dignity are not up for debate."

Rowell said of Maximus leadership: "Let them take a day in our shoes and see for themselves exactly how it is. It's not just butterflies and rainbows, as they're stating to us."

Comment