BY CRAIG GILBERT
Greater Sudbury lost 47 jobs this week thanks to the recently enacted American National Do Not Call Registry.
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Dial America, one of the largest call centre networks in the United States, operated out-bound AlTel Marketing at 1400 The Kingsway.
The Do Not Call registry has had an effect across the industry, according to Mike Sparks, a branch development manager in Dial AmericaÂ?s human
resources department.
Â?MCI laid off 4,000 people when they closed their call centre in Phoenix two weeks ago,Â? Sparks said. Â?We have closed 12 call centres in the last year.Â?
He said that accounts for about 25 per cent of its out-bound operations.
In February 30 workers on the day shift at AlTel were laid off for Â?business reasonsÂ?.
Those workers claimed they were dismissed for personal reasons after complaining about a manager.
With the branch now fully closed, all six full-time and 41 part-time employees are out of a job.
Americans have registered more than 58.4 million phone numbers online or by telephone, free of charge, according to the registryÂ?s website.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission are enforcing the registry.
The FTC originally stated companies had to purge all the numbers from their call lists, or Â?scrubÂ? them, every quarter, but announced in February that
has to occur monthly starting Jan. 1 2005.
Telemarketers have three months from the time a phone number is registered to cease calling that number.
Information on the website www.donotcall.gov says the registry was created to offer consumers a choice regarding telemarketing calls.
Â?The FTCÂ?s decision to create the National Do Not Call Registry was the culmination of a comprehensive, three-year review of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), as well as the CommissionÂ?s extensive experience enforcing the TSR over seven years.Â?
The FTC sought feedback through numerous workshops, meetings, and briefings and considered more than 64,000 public comments, most of which favoured creating the registry.
Fifteen states have uploaded their own do-not-call lists to the national registry.
Up to three personal phone numbers can be registered under the same application. The numbers stay on the list for five years.
Business numbers canÂ?t be registered.
There is no national or provincial legislation regarding do-not-call registries in Canada.
