Im going to suggest that adding use strict; use warnings; to the top of your programs might sort this out more.

what you didnt show was where those formats were made, what namespace they are in and how they reflect the namespace that printConfig is in. i am suspecting that where the formats were defined the $action it is looking for is not in the same namespace that printConfig is in when it is running. therefor when the format is executed it cannot find the variable $action in its namespace, even tho an $action is available in the printConfig namespace