Bank of America Fires It's One Employee With A Conscience

Thank You, Jackie Ramos

Evidence that "Moral Banking" is an Oxymoron: Why I Got Fired

Transcript from the Video:

"My name is Jackie Ramos, and I would like to tell everyone a story. I am a former employee at Bank of America in Georgia. I worked in the customer assistance department from May 1st to November 23rd, 2009. And by the way, "customer assistance" is a euphemism for "the collections department."

Every day I came to work and did just as I was supposed to: I collected. In fact, I was one of the top performers of my department, even outdoing those who were more tenured than I was. But something was wrong. There was something inherently evil about my job.

I'm not sure if Bank of America knows this, but we are in a recession, and most of us, we are hurting.

Day in and day out, I was told to charge people who had already fallen behind in their credit card bills an additional $15 just to make a payment with me. As I was told by my manager, it was a convenience fee. I was told to deny refunding as many late and over the limit fees as I could. There was even one month I was given a verbal warning about the amount of fees that I refunded, because as I was told so many times, Bank of America is a corporation, and they are for profit.

There is something we have in my department called a Fix Pay. Essentially it is a program that turns your balance into an installment loan. It stops all fees on the account, and it also closes your account. In order to get a Fix Pay, though, you have to qualify by answering a rather irrelevant set of questions, like how much you spend on groceries and how much your cellphone bill is. Day in day out I had to deny countless people who needed the program but didn't qualify. Too often I would have to give them the spiel about, "I can't accept you [into the program] because your disposable income is too negative," and then they would just sit there on the phone and say, "Well, if I could afford to pay my bill, why would I need a program?"

I will never forget one card holder. A 24-year-old woman with a child, just found out she had cancer, she lost her mom and her husband all in the same week. Of course she had a very limited income. She had to quit her job. But she still respected Bank of America enough to try to pay off her $6,000 debt. But she just needed help. She sobbed on the phone telling me she couldn't afford the 30 percent interest that we had her--sorry, 29.99 percent interest--that we had her account on. She couldn't afford the $39 late fee, the $39 over the limit fee. She told me that we were her first credit card when she turned 18, we were her only credit card, and that she was a loyal customer, and given the time to be on this earth a little while longer she would have always remained a loyal customer. I couldn't put her on the program, she didn't have enough income.

According to BOA she doesn't have enough income to be put on the program, but she can however keep paying the high interest rate on the account, and fees, because at the end of the day it is her account, she did rack up the debt, and she was late, so she did deserve that 29.99 percent interest rate that she had, and it wasn't up to Bank of America to help her figure out how to get this debt paid off. It was up to her.

There's a joke in my department: upstairs they sell you the credit, downstairs we collect on it. Too often I heard stories about how senior citizens and college students were specifically targeted, so Bank of America could continue to make money off of them. I had one elderly lady who was legally blind. Every month she sent them the incorrect amount because she couldn't see. Her 3 percent APR after 3 times being late went to 29.99 percent. She actually told me that one of the associates told her she needs to look at her statements more clearly.

After all, who better to target than the young and the old. Don't deny for a second that there are systematic practices put in place to keep America in debt.

I'm not doing this video because I'm bitter. I'm not doing this video because I hate [my old boss]. I still have a lot of respect for him. Out of all the interviews I had in my life, I will never forget the one I had with him. He told me the most interesting interview question he's ever been asked is, "What keeps you up at night?"

Before I got that job, that question didn't really make sense to me. Who asks that in an interview, I thought? But now that I've been in that department for a while, it makes sense, it does seem normal. All the people that I've had to deny [repayment] programs to--they kept me up at night. All the people that I've pissed off with a $15 "convenience fee"--they kept me up at night. All the people who were dying, lost a child, husband, mom, dad, all the people who lost their jobs and sat on the phone sobbing to me that if we just gave them a little bit of help, they could make ends meet--they kept me up at night. All the angry cardholders who told me the reason why Bank of America is the corporation that it is, is off the hard work of them and their tax dollars--they kept me up at night.

So... I stopped denying people. I helped people get on programs that they didn't necessarily qualify for, but who definitely needed the help. Every day I was told three things:

• do the right thing for the customer;
• think of yourself as a customer;
• and do the right thing for the company.

I figured if I placed more cardholders on programs at affordable rates, then maybe they could afford their light bill, or even enjoy a trip with their child to the movies. If the account was affordable for the card holder, it wouldn't charge off. I mean, that seems as simple as 1 and 1 being 2. But my company didn't think so.

At the end of the day I would love to have a company that thought of me as more than just a dollar bill. I would love to have a company just be more humanitarian, and think of me as a person instead of a profit.

But the three things I was told to think about every day in my interactions with cardholders didn't matter. In fact, only one of them did. "Do what is right for the company." Again, Bank of America is for profit. They would rather charge 30 percent interest anyway, than give hard working Americans like me and you a lower interest rate and work with us instead of against us.

So, [my boss] fired me. He told me I can't put people on programs who don't deserve it. During our meeting, he asked me if what I did was right. I looked him dead in the eye and I said, "Absolutely." I know he was expecting me to maybe say no or to apologize, but there's no apology. There's no way I could look myself in the mirror every day and justify not helping someone when I had the power to do it.

Given the opportunity to do it again, I wouldn't change a thing. He actually looked at me, he told me that he understood why I did what I did, he said I had a really big heart. But at the end of the day, it was policy, and he had to let me go. He told me my manager would escort me to the security desk and that all my stuff would be there.

And he was right. All my stuff was there in two boxes, all my awards, all the pictures of my son, even a plate of food that I had on my desk. [My manager] packed all my belongings, including the plate of food, and threw it in the box. The food got all over my shoes and awards, even the picture of my son. After all, Bank of America? They're just a corporation. They're not concerned with their employees' well-being or clearly even their cardholders.

There's a saying in my department that you are as good as your last payment. No truer words could have been spoken.

I'm not necessarily sad about losing my job. I felt like I took a stand and I did what was morally correct. I have a wonderful support system, I have a college degree, and I consider myself personable, so I'm sure I'll land back on my feet. In fact, as my manager was escorting me outside she told me that if I needed a reference, she would highly recommend me to everyone. I received nothing but accolades while I was at Bank of America. Even while I was getting fired my boss told me that out of anyone she's ever met I've had the highest morals and biggest heart she's ever seen, and that means more to me than my job.

At the end of the day, I don't have anything keeping me up at night. I did the right thing in God's eyes and I'm sure that He'll bless me. But [boss], can you say the same?”

More on the Awesome Jackie Ramos:

One Million Percent Interest? Yup.

from The Huffington Post

December 2, 2009 11:22 AM

Overdraft This!

by Erik Sean Nelson

"Overdraft Fee" is such a harmless sounding name. Focus groups must have reacted negatively to the bank's second choice, "Kick You While Your Down Fee." I really hate overdraft fees. The Fed has made banks allow you to opt out of them, but my family has received calls from banks telling me it's foolish to opt out. Really? Congress is trying to further regulate the banks' ability to charge them. An overdraft fee is essentially a short-term loan. If you bounce a $1 Slurpee the bank can charge you $35 (which is essentially an interest charge). Because your bank account is now negative and you can't do any banking until you pay it back, the length of that loan is usually one day. At first glance that looks like an interest rate of 3,500% (unconscionable but still incorrect). Because we are used to seeing loans in terms of Annual Percentage Rate, we have to multiply 3,500 by 365 days. Now you can clearly see that your bank is kind enough to loan you the $1 to buy that Slurpee at 1,277,500% interest. Don't you love unregulated capitalism?

Remember, dear readers, that you can be sent to jail if you loan money to your friend at a rate higher than 18%. That's right. An individual can't charge more than their state's usury limit, however if you are a business then you can charge much more (from my credit card's 27% to the Slurpee's 1 million percent). If you bought a $100,000 house at a million percent, it would take you 2 billion years to pay it off. But don't worry you'll have the last laugh, because the Sun is going to foreclose on you before the bank gets the last penny... which makes you laugh at those stupid banks.

Why are things a crime for the normal citizen, but daily routine for the Big Guys? In life it seems that doing something that is "small scale immoral" gets you in trouble, while doing something that is unfathomably immoral is legal. Kill one person and you get life in prison. Kill 1 million people and it's called War. War, we're told, is a legal and "necessary evil." Yeah well, killing my rich mother-in-law is what I call a "necessary evil" too but I don't see the "I Need A Ferrari Defense" going over too well with the judge.

Here's another example of business vs. individual: Say you loan a friend a book but he keeps forgetting to give it back. You then break into his house and take it home. Don't plan any vacations because you are going to jail. However if you are late in paying the bank for your car then they'll come to your house and repossess it. Why do the banks always win? It's almost as if there is someone who is always there to change the rules and bail them out.

Lastly, what can happen to you if you make an illegal copy of a CD? The FBI can charge you criminally. But when Walmart makes a copy of Mountain Dew and calls it "Mountain Lightning," that's called "corporate business smarts." Let's see if Wachovia will sue me if I try opening a bank called "Wackjovia." Oh, they'll bankrupt me into eternity. But it would be fun to have Citibank sue me because I chose to open a Schittibank. In fact, all the banks would end up suing me because they each take singular pride in being the sch*ttiest.

JCP&L: Showing their true colors

JCP&L denies full pension to former employee's widow

by Karin Price Mueller/The Star-Ledger

Monday April 06, 2009, 9:00 PM

How much is 17 hours of your life worth? It's a question widow Brenda Slutter has been wrestling with for years.

Her husband, Ron Slutter, worked for Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) for nearly 36 years. He died of cancer at age 58. Knowing his death was imminent, Ron made arrangements to retire, a move that would allow his wife to receive the largest possible company pension benefit after his death. He was told by JCP&L, his widow said, that his official retirement date had to be on the first of the month -- but died 17 hours and 40 minutes before the paperwork was finalized.

Bruce Winter/Express TimesBrenda Slutter, widow of Ron Slutter, who is being denied full pension benefits by Jersey Central Power and Light because her husband died shortly before the paperwork was finalized.

Thanks to a tangle of bureaucratic rigidity, legal fine print and the timing of her husband's death, Brenda, 59, receives only half the pension benefit her husband meant for her to receive.

"If January only had 30 days, he would have made it," Brenda said.

BUREAUCRATS AND TECHNICALITIES
Ron Slutter was a popular guy at JCP&L, working up the ladder until he was in charge of teams that buried underground cables. His personnel file is decorated with letters thanking him for exceptional service. He had 165 unused sick days on the books when he died.

"He was a good employee," Brenda said. "The day I took him to the hospital, he didn't want to go unless he could get in touch with his foreman to let him know he'd be out."

In 1998, Ron was diagnosed with asbestosis, an incurable lung condition caused by long-term exposure to asbestos. (In medical reports, his doctors said they believe it was contracted after asbestos exposure on the job, and the Slutters filed a worker's compensation claim in 2000. That case has not yet been resolved; JCP&L declined comment, citing employee confidentiality concerns.)

Ron worked through his illness until late 2005, when he was diagnosed with colon, stomach, spleen and pancreatic cancer, which his medical reports indicate commonly follow asbestosis.

By January 2006, knowing he was dying, Ron took steps to maximize the pension he accrued during his 35-plus year career with JCP&L, his wife said.

He knew if he died as an active employee, Brenda would receive only a 50 percent payment option on his pension -- a loss of more than $7,200 a year. So on Jan. 24, 2006, he informed his benefits department he wanted to retire immediately.

A portrait of Ron and Brenda Slutter.

The Slutters were told Ron's official retirement date would have to wait until Feb. 1 because the company processes retirement dates only on the first of the month.

Ron completed all the necessary paperwork from his hospital bed, electing a pension payout option -- known as the 100 percent spousal option -- that would continue to pay 100 percent of his pension to his wife for her lifetime.

Ron died at 6:20 a.m. on Jan. 31, 17 hours and 40 minutes before his official retirement date and 54 days after his cancer diagnosis.

As Brenda grappled with the death of her husband of 36 years, she thought her financial future was secure. But then JCP&L gave her unexpected news: because Ron died as an active employee, his retirement was never official. Therefore, his wife was due only a 50 percent benefit rather than the 100 percent pension payout she would have received had Ron held out a few more hours.

Three years later, Brenda Slutter is still fighting. She's talked to the benefits department, sent letters to JCP&L executives, tried going through her husband's union and submitted appeals to the company's Retirement Board -- to no avail. She's now retained an attorney.

"I'm not trying to sue them for anything. I just want what my husband wanted for me," Brenda Slutter said.

Brenda was already retired when Ron died, but to make ends meet she takes occasional cleaning jobs. She hasn't been able to tap into her retirement savings without facing penalties because she's not yet 59 1/2.

"They said to me, 'Well, we gave you his full life insurance,' because if my husband had retired, the company would have only given me $30,000 of his $98,000 life insurance," Brenda Slutter said. "Mind you I paid the policy premiums. They did me no favor."

Bamboozled contacted JCP&L to talk about the case, but the company wouldn't discuss any particulars.

"We respect the privacy of all of our employees and do not publicly discuss or disclose any personal information," said Ronald Morano, spokesman for First Energy, the parent company of JCP&L. "We work diligently to ensure that our employees and their families understand their benefits and the options available to them."

THE LEGAL SIDE OF THINGS
JCP&L isn't legally bound to pay Brenda Slutter the full benefit, but it could choose to work around the letter of the law because Ron's intent was clear.

"Look aside the technicalities of the law," said Edward Cohen, the attorney for JCP&L's labor unions, including Local 327 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to which Ron Slutter belonged. "The company knew in reality that he wanted her to have the 100 percent benefit."

Ron Slutter filed all the right forms. He just didn't live long enough.

If JCP&L didn't want to let the pension law slide, it could have assigned Ron an earlier retirement date. Even today, nothing but company policy is stopping JCP&L from making that date change retroactively.

"The reality is there's no one who would complain if they gave her the pension," Cohen said. "Can they say they're not supposed to do that? Yes. But who's going to complain? Nobody."

After investigating Brenda Slutter's story, Ron Slutter's work and benefit history with JCP&L and the 17 hours, Bamboozled asked the company to once again reconsider Brenda Slutter's pension payout.

"That's a discussion between the company and the family," said Morano, the JCP&L spokesman.

Brenda Slutter isn't surprised by the company's response, and she's not giving up her fight.

"This is not how you reward someone for doing an excellent service for your company," she said. "I guess First Energy needs half of my husband's pension more than I do"

Yeah, just like they needed my electricity payments in advance.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

WOW

December 13, 2008

Even Workers Surprised by Success of Factory Sit-In

By MICHAEL LUO and KAREN ANN CULLOTTA

CHICAGO — The word came just after lunch on Dec. 2 in the cafeteria of Republic Windows and Doors. A company official told assembled workers that their plant on this city’s North Side, which had operated for more than four decades, would be closed in just three days.

There was a murmur of shock, then anger, in the drab room lined with snack machines. Some women cried. But a few of the factory’s union leaders had been anticipating this moment. Several weeks before, they had noticed that equipment had disappeared from the plant, and they began tracing it to a nearby rail yard.

And so, in secret, they had been discussing a bold but potentially dangerous plan: occupying the factory if it closed.

By the time their six-day sit-in ended on Wednesday night, the 240 laid-off workers at this previously anonymous 125,000-square-foot plant had become national symbols of worker discontent amid the layoffs sweeping the country. Civil rights workers compared them to Rosa Parks. But all the workers wanted, they said, was what they deserved under the law: 60 days of severance pay and earned vacation time.

And to their surprise, their drastic action worked. Late Wednesday, two major banks agreed to lend the company enough money to give the workers what they asked for.

“In the environment of this economic crisis, we felt we were obligated to fight for our money,” Armando Robles, a maintenance worker and president of Local 1110 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, which represented the workers, said in Spanish.

The reverberations of the workers’ victory are likely to be felt for months as plants continue to close. Bob Bruno, director of the labor studies program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, predicted organized labor would be emboldened by the workers’ success. “If you combine some palpable street anger with organizational resources in a changing political mood,” he said, “you can begin to see more of these sort of riskier, militant adventures, and they’re more likely to succeed.”

The tale of how this small band of workers came to embody the welter of emotions in the country’s economic downturn is flecked with plot turns from the deepening recession, growing anger over the Wall Street bailout and difficult business calculations. The workers were not aware, for example, that Republic’s owners had quietly set up a new company, Echo Windows LLC, incorporated on Nov. 18, according to records with the Illinois secretary of state’s office. And Echo had bought a window and door manufacturing plant in Red Oak, Iowa.

Company officials in Iowa declined to comment, but Mary Lou Friedman, the human resources manager at Echo, said in a telephone interview that the factory had 102 employees, all nonunion.

And at the last minute of negotiations, according to Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois, who helped moderate talks to resolve the standoff, and union officials, Republic’s chief executive, Richard Gillman, demanded that any new bank loan to help the employees also cover the lease of several of his cars — a 2007 BMW 350xi and a 2002 Mercedes S500 are among those registered to company addresses — as well as eight weeks of his salary, at $225,000 a year.

The demand held up the settlement, which was reached only after Mr. Gillman agreed to back down. (Mr. Gillman said Friday that he had sought the money to offset a large bonus in 2007 that he had chosen not to accept.)

In many ways, however, Republic was an unlikely setting for a worker uprising. Many workers interviewed, including some who had been at the plant for more than three decades, said they considered it a decent place to work. It was a mostly Hispanic work force, with some blacks. Some earned over $40,000 a year, including overtime, pulling them into the middle class and enabling them to set up 401(k) retirement accounts and buy modest homes.

But after Mr. Gillman took over as owner in 2006, there were several rounds of layoffs, and the number of employees fell to about 240, from more than 500.

The company had been affected by the declining housing market, and Mr. Gillman said it had also been affected by Chicago’s higher production costs. He said he had hoped to salvage the business by buying another manufacturer in Ohio, but was turned down by Bank of America.

“This has been the worst week of my life,” he said. “I know many of those workers at Republic personally, and I put 34 years of my life into that business, and all my money, too. No stone was left unturned in our effort to save Republic.”

By mid-October, the company had exhausted its $5 million line of credit with Bank of America, and the bank was refusing to lend the company any more money.

“We declined to provide an additional loan because of the company’s dire financial conditions,” said Julie Westermann, a bank spokeswoman.

Bank officials said Republic filed for bankruptcy on Friday.

In mid-November, during a late-night vigil to see where the missing equipment was going, Mark Meinster, 35, one of the factory’s union organizers, broached the possibility of a sit-in with Mr. Robles, the president of the local, if the plant should be closed.

Mr. Robles, 38, who had worked at the factory for eight years, said he was excited by the idea but also mulled the potential repercussions. “We’d basically be trespassing on private property,” he said. “We might get arrested.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Robles told Mr. Meinster that he believed most workers would participate. In the coming days, the idea would take root among other union leaders.

On Tuesday, Dec. 2, Barry Dubin, the company’s chief operating officer, delivered the final verdict to workers, telling them they would probably not be getting severance pay or be paid for accrued vacation days. Union leaders quickly moved to hash out details of an occupation.

“We knew keeping the windows in the warehouse was a bargaining chip,” said Melvin Maclin, a groove cutter and vice president of the local.

While some workers picketed Bank of America, others began attending to their own financial worries, with many liquidating their 401(k)’s. Others cast worried eyes on their meager savings accounts.

On Friday, union officials met with company officers and learned the workers’ health insurance was being cut off.

Later, with employees gathered in the cafeteria, Mr. Robles asked for a show of hands of how many would be willing to stay at the factory. All hands went up, with shouts of, “Sí, se puede!” — or “Yes, we can!”

“I ain’t got no other choice,” Alexis McCoy, 32, a driver’s assistant, said later. “I have a newborn. I have to take care of my family.”

Local politicians discouraged the police from arresting the workers. Exasperated company officials decided not to press the matter as the news media began arriving in droves.

The workers organized themselves into three shifts and set up committees in charge of cleanup, security and safety. A sign was taped to a cafeteria wall banning alcohol, drugs and smoking.

Negotiations involving the company, Bank of America and union officials began late Monday afternoon at the bank’s offices downtown.

At the root of much of the discussions was the federal law requiring employees to be given 60 days’ notice, or that amount of severance, when plants close.

Bank officials said it was not their responsibility as lenders to ensure that the company made these payments. They said later that they had been discussing closing the plant with the company as far back as July, giving it plenty of time to fulfill its obligations to its workers.

Nevertheless, union officials argued that Bank of America had received billions of taxpayer dollars in the recent federal bailout, meant to free up credit to companies like Republic.

“We never made the argument you have a legal responsibility,” said Mr. Gutierrez, who described bank officials as willing to be helpful almost immediately. “We said, ‘Will you make a corporate responsibility decision?’ ”

Bank of America’s offer to lend the company roughly $1.35 million came on Tuesday, and additional help came from William M. Daley, the brother of Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago and the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase, which owned 40 percent of the window company and agreed to lend an additional $400,000.

Mr. Gillman’s demands, however, became a major sticking point. “I’m not going to describe to you the words that were used when those issues were brought up,” Mr. Gutierrez said.

Eventually, the parties agreed that the workers would be the only ones to benefit. They would be paid severance and for vacation, and receive two months’ health coverage. The company owners also agreed to come up with $114,000 to cover the payroll for their last week of work.

When union negotiators returned to the factory on Wednesday evening with the agreement, the workers approved it unanimously. They emerged from the factory chanting, “Yes, we did!”

ROLE REVERSAL

Breaking News! Illinois Factory Workers Screwed By Their Employers!! Wait, wait....no, that's not the story. The story is...Illinois Factory Workers Screwed By Their Employers are Supported By the Government! What???? Obama hasn't taken office yet...but already a major shift seems to be occurring in the psyche of the nation's leaders.



In a classic "We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Going To Take it Anymore!" move, a group of factory workers, given three days notice out the blue about the impending demise of their workplace AND told they wouldn't be paid earned vacation hours, took action. They refused to leave work and utilizing a classic civil disobedience maneuver, occupied the windows manufacturing plant. FIGHT ON, BROTHERS!!


But, in my jaded view, the even more amazing aspect of this protest is that the government of the State of Illinois quickly took up the side of the workers, suspending all State business with its bank, the Bank of America, and readying a complaint through the Dept. of Labor.


If one fails to grasp the significance of the government's taking the moral high road on behalf of the blighted worker, these three words should freshen your memory: Air. Traffic. Controllers. Remember? In 1981, when 12,000 Air Traffic Controllers went on strike, the government....FIRED. THEM. ALL. A move which arguably led to this day, having created an environment where owners are comfortable pitting themselves against workers and in their pursuit of the almighty dollar, plan to discard them with nary a consequence to their business.

Could this be a sign of a seismic shift in the national moral standards...or maybe I should say, an unprecedented move to actually build a national moral standard in relation to workers' rights? One can only.....hope. Read on, my friends:

December 9, 2008

Illinois Threatens Bank Over Sit-In

By MONICA DAVEY

CHICAGO — As workers at a window-making plant here prepared to spend a fourth night in the factory they had been told to leave for good, union leaders, bankers and company owners met into the night on Monday but the meetings ended without bringing about an end to the workers’ peaceful but increasingly tense occupation of the plant.

The layoff of 250 workers last week at Republic Windows and Doors on the North Side with only three days’ warning and without pay the workers say is owed to them had, by Monday, drawn the attention of nearly every politician with a connection to this city, numerous union and workers’ rights groups and scores of ordinary people, who arrived at the plant offering families toys, food and money.

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, who met with the workers Monday morning, said the State of Illinois was suspending its business with the Bank of America, Republic Windows’ lenders, and that the Illinois Department of Labor was poised to file a complaint over the plant closing if need be. Political leaders on the Chicago City Council and in Cook County threatened similar actions. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez said he was encouraging the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice to investigate. “Families are already struggling to keep afloat,” Mr. Blagojevich said.

Workers here say they blame the operators of Republic Windows and Doors, a manufacturing company that was founded in 1965, for giving them just three days’ notice before closing last Friday, with no earlier hints to the employees that orders for vinyl windows and sliding doors had fallen off.

Late Monday, the company released a statement that indicated that it had known since at least mid-October that it intended to close the factory by January. The statement suggested that it had gone back and forth with Bank of America for more than a month, but that the bank had rejected several of its “wind down” plans as well as the company’s request for financing to pay workers’ owed vacation.

The statement also revealed that the family of Richard Gillman, once a minority shareholder who in 2006 and 2007 bought out Republic, last month formed a new window business — Echo Windows LLC. All along, workers here said they feared the owners were shutting down to reopen a cheaper operation somewhere else. A trade publication reported last week that Echo had recently bought a window manufacturing plant in Red Oak, Iowa. No one from Republic could be reached for comment.

“It is looking like reopening is exactly what happened,” said Tara Taffera, the editor and publisher of the publication, Door and Window Manufacturing magazine.

The company’s statement said it had been placed, “in the impossible position of not having the ability to further reduce fixed costs, coupled with severe constrictions in the capital debt markets and an unwillingness of the current debt holder to continue funding the operations.”

The workers here also blamed Bank of America for preventing the owners from paying its workers for already-earned vacation time and severance. Workers here said the owners told them last week that Bank of America had cut off the company’s credit line and would not allow payments.

As part of government bailout efforts for the struggling banking industry, Bank of America has received $15 billion, and is expected to receive an additional $10 billion. That fact left many workers here seething.

“Taxpayers would like to see that bailout money go toward saving jobs, not saving C.E.O.’s,” said Leah Fried, an organizer for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. “This is outrageous.”

Officials said negotiations would resume Tuesday.

Bank of America issued a statement late Monday stating that the company, not the bank, had the ability to choose whether to honor what it owed workers.

“We agree with the statements of public officials that Republic Windows and Doors should do all it can to honor its obligations to its employees and minimize the impact of failure on those employees,” the statement said.

“When a company faces such a dire situation, its lender is not empowered to direct the company’s management how to manage its affairs and what obligations should be paid,” it went on. “Such decisions belong to the management and owners of the company.”

Federal law from the late 1980s requires employers to give workers 60 days’ notice (or 60 days of pay) in cases of plant closings or large layoffs. Still, that federal law, known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, provides exceptions in cases when a “faltering company” is actively seeking capital to save itself and has reason to believe announcing a possible closing might prevent it from getting that capital or in “unforeseeable business circumstances,” like unexpected conditions outside an employer’s control.

How This Thing Works

Just a short little article- I did not write-while I work (gotta shore myself up here for the coming long winter)....and work on my own (essay that is). This is a pretty excellent list of paragraphs and reading it just really...well, it saddened me. Because it's just so damn true.

"How racism works:

Consider the following:

• What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
• What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
  
• What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said "I do" to?
  
• What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?
• What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
  
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
  
• What if Obama were a member of the "Keating 5"?
  
• What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the
election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities
in another when there is a color difference.
— Kelvin LaFond, Fort Worth

Really, this is something I think everyone should keep in mind while they follow the election.

What is Driving Up Electricity Prices???? (advertisement tucked in obscure page of the newspaper)

"WHY has the energy supply cost gone up so much??"
OF COURSE....how silly of me, it's the fault of China and India!! The gall of them, thinking they have the right to suck up all of that energy to develop their economies-energy that rightfully should be going to the good ol' Red, White and Blue ...(them countries is full of small brown foreigners, dontcha know!)

Course it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the total combined compensation for PSE&G's top five executives comes to just a smidge under TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!

$24,000,000

That's right, while I'm entertaining an excruciating inner debate as to whether or not I can afford having the oven on all day to bake a (free) ham these mofos are bringing in 744 times my salary!!! 'Course that don't have nuthin' to do with my electricity bills rising nigh on 300% in 5 years (60% a year, folks!)

Nope, it's all them uppity brown folks' fault. Wait, oh yeah and them left-winger green radical granola freaks!!

"Making electricity cleaner also adds costs"

Damn commie liberals!! They're probably in cahoots w/ them foreigner chinks....oh, let's not forget, Corzine, one of them commie liberal democrat leaders!! They're always somewhere behind the scenes in these travesties of the natural order.

dudes.....

How 'bout this? How 'bout when you're 'debating action to combat climate change' and 'factoring in the cost of different alternatives on electric prices'...hows 'bout bringing the CEO compensation to the table. Eh? I mean, really what in TARNATION do you need $13,000,000 a year (the top JCP&L CEO salary) for?? WHAT???

One more little bit of money saving advice: save yourselves some effort and dump the PR campaign...do you think anybody is reading these little ads (other than obsessed angry freaks like myself?) . I could have undoubtedly covered three months of electricity bills with the cost of that ad.


Pleeeease....why must you add insult to the injury.

(and some news..)
unsolicted lightbulbs
Seeking lower energy costs not worth it?
(I've actually looked into this...you almost have to have an MBA to figure it out

coming soon....latest on my bill ....