One September morning, Anna Flemmings, 57, clicked “answer” on the laptop screen she had set up in the spare bedroom of her apartment and answered a call. It came from the Medicare hotline run by her employer, Maximus, Inc. Flemmings, a seven-year veteran of call centers, tried to help the man on the other end of the line. She wanted to report fraudulent charges to her Medicare coverage but quickly grew frustrated. Before the call ended, Flemmings says, he called her a “stupid bitch.” For this job, she makes $17.63 an hour — far less than a living wage in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where she lives.
Due to low wages and other grievances, Flemmings has been calling for a union alongside his coworkers since 2017. Like many workers, Maximus employees are organizing for better benefits, wages and working conditions. many workers Those who organize are up against an employer they say is fighting the union with illegal tactics. But in one key respect, they are different: Their employer has a massive federal contract, with an administration led by the self-proclaimed “most pro-union president in history.”
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There are approximately 10,000 call centers workers employed by Maximus and its subcontractors, spread across 12 facilities in eight states, handling more than 35 million calls of Americans insured by Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) each year. Last fall, Maximum landed a nine-year, $6.6 billion contract contract to continue handling Medicare and ACA calls for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), work that has been done from acquiring General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) call center operations in 2018. If you’ve made a call to Medicare, the ACA marketplaces, or healthcare.gov, chances are a Maximus worker has answered it.
It’s a lucrative business for Maximus, a Fortune 1000 company that reported $1.19 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2023 alone. Maximus has also benefited from the deluge of Medicaid Redeterminations Driven by the end of the pandemic era “continuous coverage.” Last year, CEO Bruce Caswell reported total compensation of more than 6 million dollars.
The economic situation is different for Flemmings and his coworkers, who answer up to 100 calls in an eight-hour shift. Flemmings earns more than the minimum wage for a federal contractor. $16.20but Living wage For someone like Flemmings, a single mother of one in Hattiesburg, the pay is $30.59 an hour. Meanwhile, workers say they have few protections against abusive calls, there are no breaks between calls, and bathroom breaks are limited to six minutes daily. (Maximus denies this.)
Workers told Capital & Main that they regularly help people sign up for better, cheaper health care plans than those offered by Maximus, a position supported by the union. Researchers in 2021. Today, Maximus workers basic insurance plan There is no monthly premium, but workers say they can’t afford to pay their $2,000 deductible and co-pays on their paychecks. Several workers reported forgoing tests and medications; Flemmings said he is juggling about $11,000 in medical debt from cataract surgeries and a pacemaker.
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