Verizon is closing its NY DSL Call Center which employs over 500 people in DSL sales, customer care, and technical support. The center will be closed on March 31st. So what? well..
Good question. This call center could be the one operated by Telespectum, and was recently mentioned in the Wall Street Journal in connection with surprise unionization of the disgruntled staff:

COMPANIES OUTSOURCE call centers, and unions pursue them.

Barbara Reformat takes calls from customers of Verizon Communications Inc. but works at a Cheektowaga, N.Y., call center owned by TeleSpectrum Worldwide Inc. Ms. Reformat says she makes about $10 an hour, while Verizon employees make about $24 an hour. Ms. Reformat now is a steward for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local that represents the call center's 300 employees. "We snuck up on them," she says of an election the union won this year.

Unions long ago organized call centers at major telecom companies, but those firms increasingly outsource customer-service tasks. Call centers come and go and see high employee turnover, but the IBEW and others still try to organize them. Tyler Prochnow, an attorney who advises the American Teleservices Association, says union activity in the industry is light, but two years ago it was almost nonexistent.

He says call centers are improving conditions "to eliminate the employee needs that unions try to fulfill."

The unhappy environment in this same call center was covered in October 2000 by the Buffalo Alternative Press in a public airing of worker complaints: High Tech Labor Troubles at Telespectrum/Verizon: An Insider's View..
This article is worth reading in full, if for nothing than to get an idea of the life of the voice on the other end of the phone.. for example:

* New procedures are introduced during peak volume without planned training, resulting in more harassment for not following procedures.

* There is a button on the telephone to depress for a rest room visit, so that a manger knows your frequency. Abuse of authority is prevalent and meander’s in the realm of violating human rights.

*Hanging overhead in each aisle are streamers of $100 dollar bills and palm trees decorated with play money. They told us the opportunity to earn more money will increase based on the inbound volume, but what they didn’t tell us is our commissions are reduced. Annual reports don’t portray that in place of receiving real money for work rendered, we are paid with trinkets such as vending machine tokens, candy treats and casual day stickers for selling more and increasing their profits.

It is impossible to know for sure, but one could conclude that Verizon, currently earning a "D" rating for tech support and "C+" for sales, and under threat from a customer class action suit over their DSL rollout, are dealing with worker revolt and unionization by simply closing down and re-allocating call center resources perhaps to less union friendly southern states (under the guise of efficiencies, or company reorganizations) in order to avoid addressing fundamental problems with the way they are treating their staff, whether outsourced, or not.