{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://rubengallego.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/32-democrats-hold-santander-accountable-potentially-discriminatory", "32 Democrats Hold Santander Accountable for Potentially Discriminatory Employment Practices", "2017-11-15", "2017", "2017-11", "Democrat", "House", "AZ", "Ruben Gallego", "G000574", "rubengallego.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, DC \u00ad\u2013 Today, Reps. Ruben Gallego (AZ-07), Yvette Clarke (NY-09) and 30 of their House Democratic colleagues wrote to Scott Powell, Chief Executive Officer of Santander Consumer USA regarding the company\u2019s use of automated call monitoring software to make employee evaluation and compensation decisions.\nAutomated software analytics \u2013 such as the Call Miner program used by Santander \u2013 are often built based on data sets that skew white, male, and toward certain dialects \u2013 which has been shown to result in telephone operators with accents, softer voices, and other varying speech patterns scoring poorly.\n\u201cWe are concerned about the possibility that the use of speech recognition tools like Call Miner in worker evaluation and compensation could lead to bias against certain groups of workers on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or even regional dialect,\u201d they wrote.\nThe letter asks Santander to take steps to ensure that the use of its call monitoring software is not having a discriminatory impact on the company\u2019s workforce, including minority, female and disabled employees.\n\u201cIf you have not, in fact, taken any specific precautionary measures or collected data to ensure that all groups of workers receive fair and equitable treatment, we strongly encourage you to suspend use of the Call Miner tool for purposes of evaluation and compensation until you have done so,\u201d the letter said.\nThe full text of the letter is below and the signed letter can be found here.\n\u00a0\nDear Mr. Powell:\nAs you likely know, we are deeply committed to combating discrimination of any form. In this context, we are writing out of concern about the potentially discriminatory implications of practices outlined in a recent report by the AFL-CIO and National Employment Law Project, \"Wheeling and Dealing Misfortune: How Santander's high pressure tactics hurt workers and auto loan consumers.\"\nThis new report describes a system of intense monitoring of Santander Consumer workers' calls through an automated system known as \u201cCall Miner.\u201d According to the report, Call Miner \u201cmonitors and records employees\u2019 calls and inspects their speech for potential problems.\u201d The information gleaned from this monitoring is then used in workers\u2019 performance evaluations,\u00a0and may result in punitive actions\u00a0including denial of bonuses to workers whose Call Miner scores are too low. We also understand that it is used as part of a \u201cforced ranking\u201d system that Santander uses to grade workers, which can ultimately lead to discipline or termination for low-ranked workers. Workers who recently came to brief Congress on conditions at Santander Consumer reported similar personal experiences.\nWe are concerned about the possibility that the use of speech recognition tools like Call Miner in worker evaluation and compensation could lead to bias against certain groups of workers on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or even regional dialect. Many studies and reports have shown that speech recognition software can fail to recognize different dialects, accents or tones. According to linguist researcher Rachael Tatman, Google\u2019s speech recognition software is much more consistent with male voices than female voices.\u00a0 Other reports note that \u201cspoken accents\u2026 continue to perplex artificial intelligence.\u201d\u00a0 Tatman states that the groups that are underrepresented in data sets that inform speech recognition software tend to be groups that are marginalized more broadly in society.\nIf Call Miner\u2019s software also fails to recognize certain groups\u2019 speech patterns, it could result in discriminatory impacts on employment and compensation. Indeed, the AFL-CIO and NELP\u2019s report cites one worker for whom Call Miner \u201cwas unable to identify the specific pronunciation of his words\u201d and another with a lisp and a soft voice who observed that Call Miner was failing to understand her speech.\nWe ask that you inform us what, if any, precautions you have taken to ensure that the use of Call Miner does not have a discriminatory impact on your workforce. Please also provide us with any analysis that you have done to monitor whether or not protected classes of workers are treated fairly by the use of Call Miner. If you have not, in fact, taken any specific precautionary measures or collected data to ensure that all groups of workers receive fair and equitable treatment, we strongly encourage you to suspend use of the Call Miner tool for purposes of evaluation and compensation until you have done so.\nThanks in advance for your consideration and we look forward to your prompt reply.\nSincerely,\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://rubengallego.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/32-democrats-hold-santander-accountable-potentially-discriminatory"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1207039933651686, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}