SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Many Spectrum support personnel stationed at crowded call centers in Central New York and elsewhere are angry the giant cable company is not letting them work from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard have been contacted by several Spectrum employees here who said they are worried they are at increased risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus and COVID-19, the respiratory illness it causes, because employees are working so close together in Syracuse-area call centers.

A worker at a Spectrum business customer call center in the 3100 block of Erie Boulevard East said the 150 to 200 employees there have been told they must continue to report to work and they can’t work from home.

“It’s a call center, so there’s desks and rows and people are sitting next to each other in their own little cubicles,” said the employee, who requested anonymity for fear of losing his job.

Today, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order requiring all businesses to decrease their in-office workforce by 75 percent to slow the spread of the virus through the population.

Why doesn’t that apply to Spectrum’s call center?

The state order exempts businesses providing “essential” services, including telecommunications. That appears to include Spectrum, which provides cable television, high-speed internet and telephone service to nearly 30 million customers through much of the nation and is the largest cable company in New York.

"Our services are essential,” Lara Pritchard, a spokesperson for Spectrum, said. "We’re working around the clock to deliver uninterrupted internet, phone and TV news services to our 29 million customers. This includes critical institutions like hospitals, first responders and government facilities.”

An email to employees from Tom Rutledge, chairman and CEO of Spectrum’s parent, Charter Communications, said the company employs 95,000 people in 41 states, of which more than 80,000 are “frontline employees,” including maintenance and construction technicians, customer service specialists, sales and retention professionals, supply chain, operations, monitoring and field dispatch personnel.

“You provide and service important connectivity, video, telephone, mobile services, local news and advertising for our customers, and those jobs cannot be performed effectively from home,” Rutledge said in the email, screenshots of which were obtained by The Post-Standard | syracuse.com.

Call center workers said there is no reason they couldn’t work from home like other office workers and be safe.

The workers said they could take their computers home and connect to the company’s customer service “queue” system, through which they can take calls from customers.

“We all have desktop computers, but they’re easily moved and you can easily take it home and do the same job out of home,” one employee said. “They’re worried that their numbers will drop or they won’t perform as well.”

Ironically, the employee said about half the calls received at the Erie Boulevard facility in recent days are from businesses wanting to set up connections at their employees’ homes.

Pritchard said the company’s customer service representatives “need to be on-site to help us deal with the customers and provide the communication services that we are providing to the community.”

After being contacted by Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, the company issued another statement later Thursday.

Now, the company said it will provide the option to work remotely “to employees we believe can remain productive outside the office without endangering our obligation to provide critical services.”

In an email to employees late Thursday afternoon, Senior Vice President Christian Ruiz said the company will offer work-from-home opportunities to workers who are at higher risk from a health standpoint, then open the option to employees who have worked for the company for six months or longer. After that, the option will be offered to employees in the “top tier of performance," he said.

Ruiz said up to 40% of Spectrum’s call center employees could be working from home eventually. He said the six-month criteria was established to ensure that less-tenured employees receive the support they need to do their jobs.

“These actions will further our ability to create greater physical separation and reduce the overall on-site staffing levels in our call centers,” he said.

Pritchard said the company is providing all employees an additional three weeks of paid time off, to be used for any COVID-19-related personal need.

“These steps will enable our employees to continue providing essential communications services to 29 million customers, including institutions like hospitals, first responders and government facilities, which help flatten the curve and protect the country,” she said.

She said the company is performing daily cleaning of “high-touch areas” like workstations, common areas, break rooms, cafeterias and coaching rooms, and was implementing increased “social distancing” plans at its call centers and operations facilities, including altering lunch and break schedules to limit size of employee gatherings.

Employees at Spectrum support centers elsewhere have also expressed concerns that they are not being allowed to work from home. Gizmodo said Wednesday it spoke with 19 Spectrum employees worried about working in open offices in North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut and elsewhere. Many said they work a hundred or more to a floor, often in close proximity.

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Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148

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