StarTek, a public company based in Denver, fired 66 employees Tuesday from its call center in Henry County.

The company would neither confirm nor deny media reports that the firings were tied to the affected workers having a criminal record and related to enforcement of a security clause in a contract with a customer. The company attributed its refusal to comment on the specifics of the terminations to a need to protect the privacy of its former employees.

Workers have said they were fired even though they had been candid in job applications about their criminal history.

In a brief statement Wednesday, the company attributed the job cuts at the inbound call center to "changing business conditions." Meanwhile, the Collinsville center is hiring customer service representatives. StarTek said the hirings are unrelated to the firings.

Before the terminations, the call center had about 890 workers.

Even after the firings, Star-Tek remains one of the largest employers in Martinsville and Henry County -- communities hard hit for years by layoffs and closings in industries that have included furniture, textiles and apparel.

In April, Martinsville's jobless rate of 20.2 percent was once again the state's worst.

StarTek's Collinsville call center launched operations in October 2004 in a facility of about 50,000 square feet. At the time, the call center had about 350 employees and an additional 225 or so in training.

The company reported then that its client was a Fortune 500 wireless provider. On Wednesday, StarTek said it does not reveal what company or companies it serves, although employees in both Henry County and Grand Junction, Colo., have said in news reports by WDBJ (Channel 7) in Roanoke and the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel in Colorado that the centers handle calls from AT&T cellphone customers.

Similar firings related to employees' past criminal records occurred in Grand Junction last month, according to the Sentinel.

StarTek's annual report for 2008 said its two largest customers were AT&T and T-Mobile, with AT&T accounting for about 55 percent of its revenues in 2008.

On May 5, StarTek announced a five-year agreement to expand a contract with Cincinnati Bell, a telecommunications provider.

StarTek operates 14 call centers in the United States. The only other East Coast center is in Lynchburg, but that facility "is not experiencing any loss of employees," according to an e-mail from company spokeswoman Mary Beth Loesch. She would not disclose whether the Lynchburg call center serves a different customer than the Collinsville site.

Virginia courts follow an "employment-at-will" doctrine. At-will employees can be fired for any reason, as long as the termination is not based on discrimination related to race, gender or age, or is otherwise illegal.

Del Smith, a supervisor with the Virginia Employment Commission, said the VEC's Martinsville Workforce Center received visits Wednesday from former StarTek workers registering for unemployment benefits.

In first quarter 2009 results released May 7, StarTek reported revenues of $70.7 million and profit of $652,000, or 4 cents per share, compared with revenues of about $64.6 million and a loss of $331,00, or 2 cents a share, during the first quarter of 2008.

News researcher Belinda Harris and staff writer Jenny Kincaid Boone contributed to this report.