You know I am an ex-union member. My father and mother were both union members.  My father was a union official.  I have a daughter that is a union organizer.
  I have always been a big supporter of the labor union movement.
  But in recent years I have just got sick and tired of unions.  They just seem to not have the ability to do anything. 
  They are not willing to fight and not willing to take a beating.

"The Unemployed Now Have Their Own Union, and It’s Catching on Quickly

An ingenious grassroots union for the unemployed is only a month old — and its numbers are growing.

February 24, 2010  | 

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

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It’s been only a month that a union for the unemployed has come into existence through an ingenious grassroots organizing campaign. In case you haven’t heard about it, the union’s name is "UR Union of the Unemployed" or its nickname, "UCubed," because of its unique method of organizing.
UCubed is the brain-child of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), whose leaders feel that the millions of unemployed workers need a union of their own to join in the struggle for massive jobs programs.
The idea is that if millions of jobless join together and act as an organization, they are more likely to get Congress and the White House to provide the jobs that are urgently needed. They can also apply pressure for health insurance coverage, unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits and food stamps. An unemployed worker is virtually helpless if he or she has to act alone.
Joining a Cube is as simple as it is important. (Please check the union web site:www.unionofunemployed.com). Six people who live in the same zip code address can form a Ucube. Nine such UCubes make a neighborhood. Three neighborhood UCubes form a power block that cntains 162 activists. Politicians cannot easily ignore a multitude of power blocks, nor can merchants avoid them.
The union is built from the ground up. Cube activists will select their own leadership in each cube, neighborhood, block and higher group as well.
Jobless Union’s Encouraging Progress in One Month
The UR Union of Unemployed (or UCubed) already has members in over 300 zip code addresses and 43 states, reports Rick Sloan, acting executive director of the union. Seventy-five cubes are up and running. For the first month, 19,998 people visited the site and viewed over 138,000 pages of content.
The union’s Op-Ed article appeared in 62 newspapers, ranging from the "Black News" to the "Mexican American Sun," and from the "Las Vegas Tribune" to the "Senior Life of Northern Indiana." Total circulation exceeded 12 million readers,
UCubed put out three press releases last month, informing politicians in Washington that the union of unemployed will be watching–and reacting–to their vote on the latest job proposals of the Obama administration.
* * * * *
It is to the advantage of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to encourage their unemployed members to participate in the UCubed organizing campaign. It is important for organized labor to display meaningful sympathy and solidarity with those who have been without a pay check for many months. A large union of unemployed workers can be an important ally in political campaigns and a source of legions of volunteers. When those unemployed workers finally get back to their jobs, we want them to have a favorable memory of how unions stood by their side.
Let’s give the unemployed the support they need to be effective in their own defense."

  I do not know what to think about this…  Not even sure what to say..

I know …You have never come to ShowMeBlog or Howard’s Notebook and had me not know what to say.. This time I will just wait and see what happens.

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"Washington (CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security has more contractors working for it than full-time employees, a situation two members of Congress said Tuesday was "unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and ranking Republican Susan Collins said they were "astounded" to learn there are more than 200,000 contractor employees at the department.

The civilian work force of Homeland Security numbers 188,000, according to an estimate provided to the senators by Homeland Security.

In a letter sent Tuesday to the agency’s Secretary Janet Napolitano, Lieberman and Collins said the figure "raises the question of whether DHS itself is in charge of its programs and policies, or whether it inappropriately has ceded core decisions to contractors."

Although Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Collins of Maine noted that contractors can offer a variety of needed assets and skills to federal agencies, they called the current balance between federal employees and contractors at Homeland Security "unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable," according to the letter…" 

  I never was happy with President Bush’s idea of the DHS.  I also did not like the man he picked to run it.  I had no idea that the DHS had so few employees.  I should have known that they would want to contract out jobs to non-government out side contractors.
Remember the big fight over airport screeners.  The Republicans did not want them to be federal employees.  President Bush did not want more FAA ATC employees and put us all in danger by trying not to hire more of them. He did get their pay cut.  They did out source of the ATC jobs to a private company.
So the above finding will not set well with Republicans.  They say they are interested in protecting the United States but the truth is they are only interested in protecting their seats in congress.
  So I expect a fight over this issue…Glenn Beck, Faux News and the rest of them will say this is a Communist plot to set up a take over of the United States.  
  Contracting out jobs sounds like a good idea but I am not sure it ever turns out good.  You lose good paying government jobs for American citizens.  When you contract out the company bids the job and you take, most of the time, the company that bids the least.  The company then hires in people and pays them as little as they can and then look for every way they can to pay them less and operate with fewer employees.  Remember in this case we are talking about HOME LAND SECURITY.  Let us say the contract is for two years.  Well in two years you have other corporations, often non-US, that look at the people that got the last contract and they bid less to get the contract and it just keeps going down hill after that happens.  If a new company gets the contract it is often out with the people that just learned out to do that job and in with new employees.
  If you want to see how it works…Just take a look at the contract employees that did security at airports before 9/11.  Take a look at the contract employees that guard federal employees.  Many years ago their were bombings, remember the 60s, at federal buildings. So the federal government set up the Federal Protection Service.  They were federal police officers to guard federal buildings.  Well the Republicans had a fit over it.  The bombing and problems at the federal buildings came to an end and Republicans demanded an end to the FPS.  (There are still a few federal protection officers left over.) So they did away with the idea of federal officers protecting federal buildings and they have gone back to contract guards.
  So I think we are going to see the same thing from the Republicans and the right wing this time. Except now the Republicans are going to say that President Obama, because he is a Communist, is going to want to hire young black thugs and put them into a federal army so he can complete his Communist take over of the United States.

Popularity: 2% [?]

“Labor’s lost year
By Harold Meyerson
The Washington Post — Wednesday, February 10, 2010
For American labor, year one of Barack Obama’s presidency has been close to
an unmitigated disaster.
Labor’s primary priority — the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — died when
the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the Senate. Labor’s normal
priority — a functioning National Labor Relations Board — also seems out
of reach, with Republicans on Tuesday blocking the appointment of Obama
nominee Craig Becker (that’s why Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown
scurried down to Washington last week to take his seat). Other key
legislation for which labor has lobbied, including health-care reform and
financial regulations, languishes in the Senate.
For the unions, the Senate’s inability to pass EFCA is devastating and
galling. Democratic senators had developed a compromise proposal that would
have jettisoned the controversial "card check" process — by which unions
could be organized without a secret ballot — in favor of expediting the
election process (so that management couldn’t delay for months, or even
years, employees’ votes on whether to unionize) and stiffening the penalties
for violating the rules that govern election conduct.
The compromise had a shot at winning all 60 Democratic votes. The unions,
which spent more than $300 million in the 2008 elections on Democrats’
behalf, wanted a vote on EFCA last year, but Obama and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid asked them to wait until health reform had passed. (Their
requests for confirmation votes on NLRB appointees were similarly delayed.)
By my count, this marks the fourth time in the past half-century that
labor’s efforts to strengthen workers’ ability to organize have been
deferred by the Democratic presidents and the heavily Democratic Congresses
they supported. In 1965, about the only piece of Great Society legislation
not enacted was the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act provision that gave
states the power to block unions from claiming as members all the employees
in workplaces where they had won contracts. In 1979, as American management
was beginning to invest heavily in union-busting endeavors, the first effort
to reform labor law failed to win cloture in the Senate by one vote as
President Jimmy Carter stood idly by. In 1994, President Bill Clinton
responded to a similar labor-backed effort by appointing a commission to
recommend changes in labor law to the next Congress — which turned out to
be run by Newt Gingrich. And last year, by asking his labor supporters to
wait, Obama ensured — unintentionally, of course — that the next effort to
revive organizing must wait until the next overwhelmingly Democratic
Congress.
Meanwhile, the percentage of American workers in unions steadily declines.
During the 1965 effort, more than 30 percent of private-sector workers
belonged to unions. In 1979, the share was 21 percent; in 1994, 11 percent;
and in 2009, just 7.2 percent. When the next chance to rewrite labor law
comes around, the rate of private-sector unionization could be down to trace
elements.
What will life be like in an America with almost no private-sector unions or
collective bargaining? We had a glimpse of that during George W. Bush’s
presidency, in which the unionization rate was already so low that median
household incomes declined even as gross domestic product rose. It’s also
apparent that a deunionized private sector won’t readily support —
politically or economically — a unionized or expansive public sector. In
1960, when California Gov. Pat Brown created the nation’s foremost public
sector — the greatest university systems, freeways and aqueducts — it was
paid for by the nation’s most vibrant, and one of its most highly unionized,
private-sector economies. California’s private sector is nowhere near as
vibrant or unionized today — a major reason its public sector is crumbling.
In a deunionized America, it’s not clear who, if anyone, will fund campaigns
such as those the unions funded this year, for universal health care and
financial regulation. It’s also not clear who, if anyone, will persuade
working-class whites to vote Democratic. (Over the past half-century, white
male union members have voted Democratic at a rate 20 percentage points
higher than their nonunion counterparts.)
No nation has ever been home to a middle-class majority absent a sizable
labor movement. In their failure to advance labor’s prospects, the Democrats
condemn themselves to a future of fewer Democratic voters and their nation
to a future of mass downward mobility.
* * *
American workers suffered a loss of a different kind Friday with the death
of Beth Shulman from complications of a brain tumor. In her 2003 book, "The
Betrayal of Work," and throughout her life, Beth eloquently championed the
interests of the tens of millions of Americans who barely make enough to get
by. Her voice, and her warmth, will be missed.”
meyersonh@washpost.com

  I am an ex-union member. I was a boilermaker and a member of the UAW.
My mother and father were both union members.  One of my four children is a union member.
  I think all the unions have failed.  How do we know they have failed?  Just look at the current state of union membership in the United States.  Just look at what “Labor Day” has become.  I should just give up on unions.  They seem to have no idea what the problem is or how to fix the problem.  

Popularity: 1% [?]

“Dear Supporter,

The headlines are ominous. "Large scale health care reform is dead," reads one newspaper. "Time for Democrats to cut their losses?" asks another. But now is not the time for scaling back reform. That’s why we need your help to whip votes for comprehensive health reform.

A comprehensive bill is the only way to fix the health care system – from expanding Medicare benefits and lowering health care costs, to improving rural care and home care services.^[*]A piecemeal approach will not address the vast, systemic problems in our health care system.

In the next 72 hours – before President Obama delivers his State of the Union address – we have a real opportunity to rescue health reform. Will you do your part, and find out where your member of Congress stands on passing a comprehensive bill?

Click here to whip a vote for health reform.

Call your members in Congress, and ask them, "Do you plan to support the passage of a comprehensive health reform bill that guarantees affordability and holds insurers accountable?"

I’ve talked to some folks who say, "Oh, I know my Congresswoman supports reform. She voted for it last year, so I don’t need to call." But that’s incorrect. Some elected officials, including House members who voted for health reform last year, are considering backing away from comprehensive reform. That’s why everyone needs to call Congress today.

Click-to-call your member of Congress for comprehensive reform. 

I can’t stress enough how important your call is today. Let’s finish the job, and finish it right.

Thanks for whipping a vote,

Jessica Kutch
Online Campaign Manager
SEIU Healthcare”

^[*] "What We’ll Lose With Market-Only Reform," SEIU.org, January 21, 2009.

Popularity: 2% [?]

  This was news to me and I guess many of us.  We did not pay attention but it is, I think, major news now.  When I see a story like this… I often ask myself what if a Democrat did this?  What would Fox "news", the right wing talk show hosts and all the other right wing people be saying?
  We know they would be going crazy over something like this.

"Washington (CNN) – Elected officials on Capitol Hill are planning to hold hearings in January to investigate the safety gaps in airline security, made more pronounced since the attempted bombing over Detroit on Christmas Day.

But one important officeholder, the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, likely won't be present at any of the hearings – simply because his nomination is being blocked in the Senate.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, has been holding up the confirmation of Erroll Southers to be TSA chief, in an effort to prevent TSA employees from joining a labor union. Southers is a former FBI special agent and counterterrorism expert…"

  This is NOT the first time that Republicans have done things like this…  During the entire administration of President Bush they held up the hiring of air traffic controllers in order to prevent them from becoming employees and union members and until they cut cut their pay.
 
  People being union members is good for the United States. If it were not for labor unions we would be working seven day work weeks next to our children.  If it were not for labor unions we would not get over time pay or vacations.
  If it were not for unions we would not have safe working conditions.

 Because of Republicans we do not have the number of air traffic controllers that we need and we do not have a head of the TSA.

Popularity: 7% [?]

"THREE MILE ISLAND – November 21, 2009 (WPVI) — A radiation leak at Three Mile Island contaminated about 100 employees Saturday afternoon, according to a TMI official…"   6ABC.COM 

  How many of you were alive in 1979?  How many of you remember the event at Three Mile Island in 1979? 

  Nuclear power sounds like a good idea but the truth is it is not…It is a major accident waiting to happen.  The event yesterday is just 200 or so workers…My guess is most of them were boilermakers or pipe fitters. 
  The 1979 event could have been death for thousands and could have ended up with an area in Pennsylvania that no one could live in for thousands of years.
  The problem with nuclear power is accidents like this but the real problem is getting rid of the waste from nuclear power stations. 
  I hope all of the workers are going to be OK.  I hope the truth comes out about the accident and about any harm that could have taken place to people.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Have you heard of Peggy Robertson? After having her second child, her insurance company required that she get sterilized if she wanted to receive health insurance. Peggy fought back, and testifed before Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s committee hearing this month on how insurance companies discriminate against women.¹

Members of Congress heard about it. The media reported on it. But we wondered, do our friends, family and neighbors realize how insurance companies have turned being a woman into a pre-existing condition?

Take your ticket for gender equity. Get in line here: seiu.org/ticket

Women want equal coverage for the equal premiums they pay – plain and simple. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is leading the charge, but we’ve got to get the word out. We built a tool to do just that – to demonstrate that any bill passed by Congress needs to end gender discrimination by insurers.

When you take your "deli counter ticket," you’ll receive a unique number. Post the number, along with this automatically-generated status update to Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere: I’m [your number] against discrimination by health insurers. Women deserve equal coverage for equal premiums. http://seiu.org/ticket #hc09

Your ticket is waiting. Take it, here: seiu.org/ticket

Right now, millions of American women aren’t involved in the health care debate. They haven’t called or written Congress. They haven’t thought about health insurance reform much at all. But they’re dealing with the health insurance system every day – paying more and getting less.

Women pay 30-40% more than men on the private insurance market. Common pregnancy and c-sections are considered "pre-existing conditions." And in some states, insurers can even deny coverage to victims of domestic violence. The bills before Congress will guarantee, once and for all, that women are treated fairly by insurers.

Already, more than 6,500 tickets have been taken. Let’s demonstrate that women (and men!) across the country are calling for an end to discrimination against women by health insurers. Take your ticket now.

Thanks for speaking out,

Jessica Kutch
Online Campaign Manager
SEIU Healthcare

P.S. Yesterday’s announcement by Senate Majority Leader Reid that the Senate bill will include a public option is great news – but there’s still much work ahead. We must keep up the drumbeat for reform by spreading awareness on key issues like this one. I hope you’ll join us by taking your ticket for health care equality.

Popularity: 1% [?]

  My grandson’s unemployment benefits run out this month.  He has been trying to find work for months.  Part of his problem is that he does not speak Spanish.  He also does not have a car and that does not help in finding a job when unemployment is high.
  Russell is not the only one with unemployment benefits running out…He has a lot of company…more than a million jobless have it running out on them.  This at a time when the national unemployment rate is at 9.7 and is the highest in 26 years.
  The House is going to take up a bill today to help these people.   It will extend benefits for those in states with a jobless rate higher than 8.5%. 
  The unemployment rate in Florida is 11%. 
  You can look up your state rate here:  Unemployment Rate

  See the CNN Money story for more details.
  I hope they extend benefits for everyone and of course I hope it helps Russell.  He has been trying to find work and he is going to school.  He will have his two year degree soon.  He will then go in the military or he will go on and try and get his four year degree. 

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“Over the past month, Catholics United has joined other faith-based organizations for a 40 Days for Health Reform campaign. More than 300,000 people of faith participated in advocacy events over the August recess. Together we sent a clear message that reforming a broken health care system is an urgent moral imperative.
We can’t stop now.

Continue reading »

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  Today is Labor Day in the United States. 
  

“Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 7 in 2009).

The holiday originated in Canada out of labor disputes ("Nine-Hour Movement") first in Hamilton, then in Toronto, Canada in the 1870s, which resulted in a Trade Union Act which legalized and protected union activity in 1872 in Canada. The parades held in support of the Nine-Hour Movement and the printers’ strike led to an annual celebration in Canada. In 1882, American labor leader Peter J. McGuire witnessed one of these labor festivals in Toronto. Inspired from Canadian events in Toronto, he returned to New York and organized the first American "labor day" on September 5 of the same year.

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City. In the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. Cleveland was also concerned that aligning a US labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair. All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday…”  Wikipedia

  If we did not have a Labor Day I do not think you could ever get it made a national holiday.  That is sad.  It is sad that for most Americans it is just a day off from work.  They have no idea about the holiday.  
  With the unemployment rate almost 10% this is going to be a sad day for many Americans.
  Each year I rave and rant about how the trade union movement has failed to tell their story and failed to connect with the American people.  I will not do it this year.
  I hope next Labor Day the United States is better…Well not just the United States but the entire world.

Popularity: 1% [?]

  The federal minimum wage today goes from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour.  Some states have their own minimum wage.  Most states have minimum wage rates higher than the federal wage. 
  CNN story on Minimum wage hike.   Wikipedia on: List of U.S. minimum wages. 

Continue reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]

  Brent Bozell on Fox "news" calls the Free Choice Act "Socialism."  The Free Choice Act is just a tool to help workers to get a union.  Right now it is very hard to get a union.  The Republicans have, over the years, made it harder and harder to get a union.  If employees are not being paid fair wages, worked over time without extra pay and treated like crap there is very little they can do.  As it is set up now it is very hard to get a union. 
  Employees will want a union but are in fear of the company.  If some employees try and get a union other workers will be afraid to sign a membership card with a union.  The company will try and keep them from signing the card and try and find out who is signing a card.  The company will commit all sort of unfair acts and nothing can be done about it.  The current labor laws are set up to protect the company and not the workers.
   If employees try and get a union the company will fire pro-union workers.  The company will order all employees to come in for meeting and then bad talk unons…the company will hire organizations and spend lots of money…to keep a union out..
   What unions and workers want is to make it easy to get a union. 
   We should make it very easy to get a union.  What is wrong with workers improving their working conditions?  It is good for the United States and good for people.
   The truth is it is good for the employer.  If a company is fair with employees and treats them well… there will not be a demand for a union. 
  

   This video shows you the company and Republican point of view on this issue.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Remember when Republicans tried to block Hilda Solis?

Well, they’re at it again. It began when a Republican committee member put a last-minute "hold" on the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be our next Health and Human Services Secretary. And now, while Sebelius awaits a final vote in the Senate, extremist outside groups are demanding that Senators block her confirmation.

Please click here to urge the Senate to vote immediately on Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Continue reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]

  The American seamen who fought off a pirate attack cite their union membership in the successful defense of their ship.

The American crew members of the Maersk Alabama – a ship recently hijacked by Somali pirates – regained control of the ship.  The seamen specifically cite their union membership as a reason for how they were able to beat the pirates.

In an interview with NBC, the ship’s Third Engineer, John Cronan, said this about their efforts:

"We are American seamen.  We are union members.  We stuck together, we did our jobs.  And that’s how we did it."

Popularity: 1% [?]

Continue reading »

Popularity: -0% [?]

Insurance giant AIG is the poster child of corporate irresponsibility.  It gambled on the housing market and lost, big time.  That’s why the government had to dole out nearly $200 billion in bailouts just to keep the company afloat.
But word broke yesterday that despite being crowned the "Bailout King," AIG is going to pay out more than $400 million in bonuses.

We’ve had enough.  On Thursday, March 19, thousands of people nationwide will demonstrate outside major banks and demand real change.  We want you to join us.
Watch this video about our actions and sign up to attend a demonstration near you:

Click here to join: http://www.TakeBackTheEconomy.org
The outrage doesn’t stop at the bonuses.  We finally found out how AIG has spent its bailout funds – it gave billions of dollars to other bailed out banks, including banks like Bank of America and Citigroup that are actively organizing against change for working families.
Just last week it was revealed that Citigroup organized a call to "build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act."  Bank of America did the same thing just days after it received its first bailout from the government.
We have major banks and financial institutions taking government money with one hand, and slapping working people in the face with the other.  The very same people who destroyed our economy are now actively working to prevent its recovery.
Enough.  Join our demonstration against corporate excess on Thursday.
http://www.TakeBackTheEconomy.org
It’s up to us to take back our economy.  We hope you’ll join our efforts.
Thanks for all you do.
In solidarity,
Michael Whitney
Change that Works
SEIU.org

Popularity: 1% [?]

  I said here that there was going to be yelling and screaming about the Stimulus bill.  The longer it goes the more the right can find things that look and sound bad.  I admit when I just see a listing of things in the Stimulus bill I wonder about some of the items.
  CNN Money has a report on the part of the Economic rescue plan for the unemployed and it seem excellent.  We need more reports like this on the other parts of the bill.

Popularity: -0% [?]

“It is not every day that you meet someone who had a hand in as many civil liberties battles as Charles "Chuck" Morgan, Jr. Chuck was one of the most influential and admired leaders in the history of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a "larger-than-life" individual who had a profound impact on both the ACLU and civil rights and civil liberties in America.
It is with much sorrow that we say good-bye to a dear friend of so many years. Chuck passed away yesterday at the age of 78 in Destin, Florida. He is survived by his wife Camille and son Charles, a restaurateur, journalist and political activist…”

Continue reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]

  I do not like the idea of giving money to the big three automakers.  I think we do not have much choice.  We need to save them. We can not afford to have them go down at this time. 
  The Republicans, some of them, are willing to destroy the big three American car makers if  they can put a stake through the heart of the labor union movement.  This would be a repeat of PATCO for Republicans.

  In 1981 the PATCO union went on strike.  President Reagan fired the 11,345 air traffic controllers and decertified the union.
  Republicans and anti-labor, anti-union people loved it and loved President Reagan for doing it.  It sent a message to big corporations that it was open season on the union movement and unions got hit time and time again over and over again  because of it.
  The United States still has major problems with air traffic control, even now, because of the actions of President Reagan.  The air traffic controllers got a new union in 1987 called the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). 

  If the Republicans can hit hard the UAW union now this will be a another big win for anti-worker/union Republicans. 
  I noticed on TV that the Republicans that are anti-union and do not want to help the auto makers are the ones that have non-American car makers in their states.  They are willing to hurt the United States in order to help the non-American car makers in their states.  The main thing they want to do is deal a PATCO type blow to the UAW.
  
  President Bush can get a few points, and he needs them, with the right and hard core Republicans if he can fuck the UAW union members.  Right people are waiting to see President Bush will use some of the money set aside to bail out banks and Wall Street firms to loan to automakers to keep them out of bankruptcy. 
  Right now the people around him are telling him this is his chance to be like President Reagan.  This is his time to pull off  a PATCO type anti-worker attack.
  They will be telling President Bush to go down in history with the great President Reagan.
 
  What will President Bush do?

Popularity: 1% [?]

  I am late paying my phone bill.  Since I get money only once each month I am often late paying the phone bill.  I called last week to pay the bill and could not talk to the office.  I need to talk to the office to pay using a debit card.  In the past I never had a problem or a delay talking to someone.
  Today early I made an attempt and the same thing… I got a recorded message that they could not connect me to someone. 
  I did a search on the Internet.  I was thinking maybe their was a fire or union problems or something.  Found nothing.
  What I did find is that AT&T is moving their call centers back to the United States.  That is making hundreds of new jobs here in the United States.  They also seem to work pretty well with the union and that is a surprise.
  It looks like the starting pay is about $12.00 an hour.  At least that is what I saw for jobs in Las Vegas. 

  I have not got a late payment statement from them or a phone call.  I have Internet service and phone service from Bell South/aka AT&T.  In a day or two I am going to get Comcast Internet and phone service.  I will drop the AT&T phone service but plan to keep the Internet service for at least one month.  I will let Russell and Ken use the AT&T (1.5M down) Internet and I will use the Comcast (6M down).  It will be interesting to see how fast my Internet service is when I am the only one using the service.  I think Russell downloads a lot of movies and TV shows.
  If it works out well for me I may keep AT&T for Russell and Ken for six months and then Comcast is going to charge me more for the Internet service and I will cancel AT&T.
  I do very little that requires much band width but the AT&T Internet service seems very slow. 
  I notice the slow speed most when I try and upload a video to YouTube three or four times a week and it takes forever to get it uploaded.
 
  I was just telling Russell about the AT&T call center and that they are moving them back to the United States and he said that two guys from CompUSA had gone to work for AT&T at $12.50 an hour.
  I think it is a good sign that AT&T is bring those call center jobs back to the United States.
  I wonder why they are doing it.

Popularity: 1% [?]