AT&T Cuts Jobs at Call Centers as It Struggles to Regroup (up to 10,000)

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/business/25phone.html

After promising in July to retreat from the residential phone market, AT&T has started to dismantle its vast operations - by closing one telemarketing and customer-service call center at a time. But will those moves help the struggling behemoth?

Labor union officials said Tuesday that AT&T informed them in recent weeks that it is in the process of closing call centers in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Charleston, W.Va.

At least 400 workers will be laid off from those three locations, and another 130 will be cut at a customer service center in Fairhaven, Mass., which is being reduced in size. A thousand contract workers were let go after Labor Day, according to an AT&T manager with direct knowledge of those layoffs.

Industry analysts now expect even more cuts, perhaps of up to 10,000 jobs, in the coming weeks so that the workers can be removed from the company's books by the end of the year.

...more...

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

1. John Snow, "Ask The White House," June 14, 2004: Could he be WRONG?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040618_2.html

jay, from charlotte writes:
I recently had a friend challange me to tell him how in any way the economy is better now then before Pres. Bush took office. Unfortunately, I could not defend my position. Could you help.

John Snow: You can feel very confident in your position. First, this Administration inherited an economy that was in steep decline and weakened further by the bursting of the tech bubble. The United States suffered further uncertainty from terrorist attacks and corporate scandals. President Bush faced and addressed each challenge, and despite the serious setbacks, we now have a strong economy that is growing stronger.

GDP, the best overall measure of economic activity, has risen over the past year at the fastest rate in 20 years. Productivity, which translates into faster income growth and a higher standard of living, grew at the fastest 3-year rate in 5 decades from 2000-2003. Since the President has been in office, after-tax income has risen by 11 percent – that means Americans are keeping more of their hard-earned money. Today household wealth and homeownership rates are at all-time highs.

The President’s economic leadership and pro-growth policies have led to an economy that is firing on all cylinders.

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. Talk about lies, damn lies and statistics

"First, this Administration inherited an economy that was in steep decline and weakened further by the bursting of the tech bubble."

A big part of that "bursting" was the outsourcing of tech jobs to other countries and the importing of foreign, lower wage tech workers into the country through the use of H1B visas, the number of which the GOP has pushed to have raised, putting even more American citizens out of work. BTW, either there is no requirement or there is no enforcement that makes a company bringing in an H1B worker to actually HIRE the person. Most are "employed" as independent contractors with no benefits. They are supposed to contribute to social security and Medicare and send in their own withholding tax, but how many do? So not only are they replacing American citizens on the job, they're ripping us off by not paying their fair share to the IRS.

"corporate scandals"

Ah yes, corporate scandals. And how many of those corporate scandals involved executives that were democrats? None? Wow, that's so amazing.

"after-tax income has risen by 11 percent "

Adjusted for inflation IT'S GONE DOWN. Furthermore, this number is skewed by the wealthy getting wealthier. Household income for the middle class and lower class is down. The number of people in poverty is up. The number of people without health insurance is up.

[Spinzonner]

5. Except of course

those who don't have jobs to be productive at, those who don't have incomes to have taxes after, and the fact that the productivity increases come in part from making people work longer but not get overtime for it - at least in the administrations dreams.

[mhr]

2. When Bush Comes Marching Home Again, We'll All Be Poor Then

Hooray, Hooray!

[whistle]

4. Outsourcing all of those to India, but Shrub says that's good!....

...for the economy....if you ignore what happens to those 10,000 people put out of work. We really need new leadership in America starting with John Kerry and sweeping right through congress, state and local governments. Through the bastard republicans out!

[Deja Q]

12. It would be good, EXCEPT

there's nothing of viable pay they're giving us in return.

It is not good. Not in the slightest.

[Kahuna]

6. A couple of months ago they let 7000 managers go in the

Consumer division. An insider told me that they planned to cuyt 85% of jobs in Consumer. I suppose this is part of that 85%. God help us.

[ihaveaquestion]

7. A network engineer friend of mine

who works for AT&T said they are outsourcing his group to Belaruse (sp?). I don't know the timing of it, but they are having to train their replacements right now.

[RevCheesehead]

8. No big surprise - they've been doing this for months.

I called the AT&T center with a problem about a month ago. The person there could not help me, so I spoke with a manager. He, too, could not help me. He said they didn't have access to the information needed to solve my problem.

When I asked, where are you located? he told me "I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to tell you." Then I said "can I assume that you are not within the continental United States?" he replied "I cannot tell you." (they had an Indian/Pakistani accent, I think).

Then the manager said "we're very frustrated because we're supposed to solve problems, and we simply do not have the information we need to do our job properly." and I said, "yeah, outsourcing is a bitch for American workers, too."


A stonger, growing economy? Not here.

[dignan27]

9. Quit being such economic girly men

The economy is strong and getting stronger, everyone knows that.

[rfkrocks]

10. more E-BAY opportunities

lets face it- jobs with benefits and a regular salary are not consistent with the economic vision of the vice-president who says we need to participate in more online auctions:crazy:

[Deja Q]

11. Will the CEOs also give themselves a pay cut?

Or are they too good? :eyes:

[Sydnie]

13. The AT&T building in Fairhaven

was just sold. AT&T plans to rent it back from the people they just sold it to as well. If that doesn't send a message to those workers, I don't know what would. When a business finds it more profitable to sell their building (one that they got many many many tax breaks for when they were building it, by the way) and then rent it back from the buyers, that is a clear indication to me that they want to be a "tenant at will" with the ability to pull out when ever they want. It's cheaper to pay off a lease then to continue to owe the taxes on the property. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they closed that facility by mid 2005 anyway.

I can remember a time when getting a job with AT&T meant job security. They would relocate you and pay most of the costs to do so when they opened a new facility.

Hey, Walmart is looking for land in that area to relocate (their current building is less than two blocks away, but not enough land for them to expand to a superstore)-- perhaps it will be the new site of their next superstore. :(

[mbperrin]

14. Woo-hoo! Look at that * job machine go!

There some more jobs go!