Sprint to eliminate 30 jobs in Hawai'i

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Thirty Sprint operators and supervisors will lose their jobs on Jan. 13 as Sprint shuts down its operation that focuses on pay-phone customers and hotel guests.

The layoffs will be permanent because the 30 workers have no right of recall and Sprint has no employee bumping policy, Sprint officials told the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations yesterday.

The 23-year-old Sprint Hospitality Operator Center at Dillingham Boulevard assists pay-phone and hotel customers across the country along with a similar center in Winona, Minn., which will continue operating, said Nonie Toledo, vice president/general manager of Sprint Hawai'i.

"When people are staying in hotels they are not calling the operator as much as they were, so the market has changed," Toledo said. "People are using wireless more and so the number of calls has come down."

The layoff notification came the day before Sprint officially opens a new relay center to help deaf and hard of hearing callers. The 20 employees at that center, however, work for the non-profit Communication Services for the Deaf and not for Sprint.

Although Sprint is shutting down its Hospitality Operator Center, it will continue to run its customer care operation to help Hawai'i residents, businesses and hotel technical operations, Toledo said.

"There will still be live, warm bodies serving those accounts," she said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at 525-8085 or dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.