Tuesday, October 28, 2008

McCain: DENIED


Big kudos to the three dozen call center employees in Indiana who walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama.

TPM Reports:

"Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told by supervisors, `If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day."

"People thought the script was nasty and they didn't want to read it."

"We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger," this worker said. "I wouldn't do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting."

The script coincided with this robo-slime call running in other states, but because robocalling is illegal in Indiana it was being read by call center workers."


Having worked in call centers myself, I know the pay scale is low. So that makes the action of these "employees with ethics" all the more admirable. They had a line they would not cross & the McCaine campaign was willing to pay them to cross it. I hope this story gets the press coverage it deserves. Indiana voters can vote early this year, I hope the workers decided to use the time to go cast their votes. In any case they walked off the job with their dignity and integrity intact ~ thank you Americall workers, for disconnecting the lies.

6 comments:

Volly said...

This is one of those times when I wish I had lots of money (alas, not even close) -- if I did, I'd find out how much money these folks forfeited for the day and double it.

Good for them. Makes much more of a statement than any poll. They call that "voting with your feet," I believe...

Fran said...

Yes! Good call, you might say.

enigma4ever said...

Good for them...wow so amazing....and I hope that they find better work...and karma brings them rewards....

enigma4ever said...

btw your photos here are amazing...

Fran said...

Must have been an Obama supporter in management, because the workers did not lose their jobs, they were just told if the script was too vile & nasty, they could walk out with out pay for the rest of the day & quite a few did.
Could have potentially been a huge freedom-to-decline-hate-speech, twist on free speech.
So they kept their integrity AND their jobs.
Win/win.

Lulu Maude said...

Wow. Their action makes me feel so much better.