Rhode Island economic officials and almost 100 local employees of AT&T are trying to convince the telephone giant not to close a relay station in Providence that serves hearing-impaired customers, effectively ending AT&T’s presence in the state.
AT&T announced July 1 that it plans to close its facility at 15 LaSalle Square on Aug. 29. The company decided to close the relay station after landlord Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island decided not to renew the telephone company’s lease, according to an AT&T spokeswoman.
An Aug. 6 meeting has been set between AT&T officials and officials from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. At the meeting, the state’s economic development team will try to convince the telephone company to relocate the relay station somewhere else in Rhode Island, or in some other way maintain its presence in the state, said EDC Executive Director Michael McMahon.
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“For the people who have these jobs they’re very good jobs, and so we want to do whatever we can to retain these jobs,” said McMahon. “And … we want to position Rhode Island to serve as an area where big companies can try out innovations. We’re a small and responsive state, access to customers is very cost efficient here, and for companies undergoing massive change, what better place than Rhode Island to test out your markets.”
About five managers and 98 telephone operators for hearing-impaired people work at the relay station, relaying calls for customers who have special typewriter devices attached to their phone lines. The operator reads a typed message from a hearing-impaired caller to the other party, then types out the other caller’s response for the hearing-impaired person.
The relay center, which relays calls for AT&T customers throughout the United States, will be closed after operating for almost two decades.
“The reason that we’re closing the relay center is that the building’s owner has decided not to renew our lease. That’s the primary reason,” said Deborah Jones, an AT&T spokeswoman.
Jones said AT&T considered opening another relay center in Rhode Island, but decided that the cost of opening a new center would be too prohibitive. Instead, the company plans to reroute the relay center’s calls to other relay centers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Georgia and Virginia, said Jones.
All of the operators at the relay station in Providence are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and have been offered jobs in the other relay centers. Employees who choose not to relocate will be offered separation packages from AT&T, including early-retirement packages for those who are close to retirement, said Jones.
So far, about 15 telephone operators at the relay center have chosen to relocate to another relay center – most of whom are a year or two away from retirement and want to collect their full pension, said Evelyn Ferranti, an operator at the relay station here. Many of those people plan to leave their spouses and families behind in Rhode Island for a year or two, until they can retire and return home, said Ferranti.
Several of the local relay operators sprung into action when they learned earlier this month that their jobs here were being eliminated, contacting the offices of U.S. senators Jack Reed and Lincoln Chafee and grabbing the attention of the EDC.
“I have obligations here. I’m not about to sell my house and pack up, but
we all like our job. You know, one of the girls is there 35 years, she’s not
going to move to Pennsylvania or New Jersey,” said Ferranti. “Where is the ‘America’
in American Telephone and Telegraph Company? They are moving out and they have
no care. What does any state have to do besides laying out the red carpet to
get a Fortune 500 company to stay?”
