United States Court of International Trade

Slip Op. 22-76

Before the Court in Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc., through Communications Workers of America Local 4123 v. U.S. Secretary of Labor, Court No. 20-00075, Slip Op. 22-76 (June 30, 2022) were the parties’ motions for judgment based on the agency record. Regarding trade adjustment assistance benefits. Plaintiff’s alleged that AT&T offshored their jobs to foreign call centers.” Id at 3.

Prior to the instant case, the court remanded the determination back to the Labor Department to “identify the particular evidence … that the certifying officer found persuasive” to support the Department’s “ruling that the ‘work remained in the United States.’” Id at 3. The court also listed the lack of explanation as to “why the certifying officer credited AT&T’s explanations over” the evidence provided by the workers as a reason to remand the case back to the Labor Department. Id at 4. After the case returned, the court once again remanded the case back to the Labor Department because the department failed to explain “why AT&T’s evidence was satisfactory without statutory certification,” and “whether the certifying officer relied on certified evidence, non-certified e-mail communications or both” to make the determination. Id at 5-6. On the second remand, the Labor Department looked over the AT&T’s workers’ claims again and determined that “the certified information collected from AT&T during the initial investigation established that the worker group eligibility criteria set forth in Section 222 of the Act, 19 U.S.C. § 2272, were not met.” Id at 7. Additionally, the department “explained why the certifying officer found AT&T’s noncertified evidence reliable and concluded that the evidence shows that AT&T consolidated the jobs in the domestic call center; thus, the workers are not eligible for benefits.” Id at 7. For the following reasons, the court granted judgment on the agency record to the defendant.

“The court reviews Labor’s denial of trade adjustment assistance benefits for ‘substantial evidence’, which ‘is more than a scintilla, and must do more than create a suspicion of the existence of the fact to be established. A reviewing court must consider the record as a whole, including that which fairly detracts from its weight, to determine whether there exists such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’” Id at 7-8. The court can also review decisions of the Labor Department under the Administrative Procedure Act, “which allows a reviewing court to set aside agency action that is ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law.’” Id at 8. Here, the Labor Department relied on the certified evidence, which “established that the company ‘had not shifted to a foreign country, or acquired from a foreign country, services like or directly competitive with the activities performed by workers at’ the relevant call centers and that ‘AT&T had not imported services like or directly competitive to the activities performed by workers at’ those call centers”. Id at 8-9. The court then looked at the defendant’s analysis for their decision after the second remand in which the department clarified that they did not rely on the noncertified evidence, only using it as a supplement to the certified evidence, and there is substantial evidence to support the conclusion “that their jobs were not offshored”. Id at 9-10.

The court did not find it necessary to delve into why the defendants found the noncertified information reliable. Id at 10. Thus, the defendant’s motion to a judgment based on the agency record was granted.