Workers met by locked doors at 2 N.B. call centresLast Updated: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 | 1:09 PM AT
CBC News
Employees of call centres in Fredericton and Bathurst appear to be out of a job as of Wednesday morning as Connect North America closed its two New Brunswick centres overnight.
Employees arriving for work in both cities this morning found a locked door with a note on it.
The note said the call centre was closed until further notice and employees would be contacted.
Michelle MacFarland, an employee for a year and a half, is one of about 250 people who worked at the centre in Fredericton.
"It's very upsetting actually, you know, it wasn't expected," MacFarland said Wednesday. "I mean there were little warning signs here and there, we figured we had a few months, we figured we'd get a little warning, they would have the courtesy to give us a couple weeks' notice or something. We didn't figure there would be a note on the door."
At this time it's not known how many people have been affected by the closure in Bathurst.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2007/08/29/nb-connectclose.html
6 comments:
You know, this is nothing new, these call centers have such a huge turn over,many come and go. I always had a suspicion that Connect North America was somewhat of a fly by nmight outfit anyway.
I know some folks that have worked there, and according to them you could be their a week or month and end up being a supervisor, and a supervisor could be a regular employee. or you could loose your job altogether. all in all, it doesn't sound like a very impressive track record
It must be that DAM quebequoi
Dan Bustiers fault.
He must be behind it!
Im sure of it!
stay tuned
-maurice the homeless guy-
I used to work there a couple years ago and it was a pretty sketchy outfit. Lots of things happened that I'm sure their contractors wouldn't be happy with and there were lots of labour law violations. Also, the working conditions were terrible. it was kinda dirty, the computers were always breaking down, half the chairs were broken, headsets wouldn't work, etc. If it wern't for all the people losing their jobs, I'd say good riddance!
I worked There for a few years and devastating when this happened.
I know everyone had horrible things to say about the place for example:
It had black mold all underneath the carpet and on the ceilings , there was no fire plan for an escape or sprinkles if there was a fire and at one point we had no air conditions in the summer and were not allowed to discuss this with Kipany who was out client. Someone did spill the beans on the air conditioning and not too long after there were ones put in.
Not to even get into the fact that not in training were we told to be misleading but once we hit the floors. You made up spend fields get the customer to agree to what they were spending by manipulating them or when it was the end of quarter you would be sent home and not payed. As for getting payed was another story for we were logged in and we were forced to log out to go to the bathroom and even simply by logging out to go get a glass of water or switching campaigns most people would lose a lot of time this way and were forced to come in extra hours to make that time up.
Another thing is the loop wholes they worked around to not give us payed stat holidays so more money lost. Illegally calling states after 9 o lock, not being compliant by recording the full conversation in Pennsylvania which i hear is a law that you can only record the conformation and then of course we had 25% taking from out incentive money which I heard Verizon did not know about which was put into Barry O Donnell pocket.
There should be a complete investigation in company and since they screwed people who may not have been able to get a job else where out of supporting there kids and family, I am sure people will be more willing to talk.
We have not heard anything about severance pay, we heard nothing even about the closure or no sign. IN fact they started with FIOS which was giving incentives that I know we will never receive again and will most likely go into Barry's pocket again.
I know that there were other jobs but they were not close to work or school for most and would be more expensive to travel back and forth with todays fuel prices. Not to mention working at Connect payed my bills and rent and thats only person, Imagen people with children to feed and from what financial difficulties I had working there before the incentive programs I was just getting by. Point being minimum wage doesn't cut it.
250 people were affected that day and how is going to be for us in the job market. Unemployment for me I guess because I had applied at other centers which the labor minister suggested and they simple close there door and say you have to wait until December to apply they are full.
I know that if Connect opened in 6 months it will be all new staff because Connect has done this before and the reason is most people don't have the experience, money for greater education and limited options for jobs. Where else will they go and what type of strain will this put on the New Brunswick Economy?
Not to mention shouldn't we get some kind of compensation since they took away profit sharing for a 12 year pension plan, which is unrealistic for an outbound call center???
There is so much more than Im not even going to bother.
I wish everyone the best of luck in the future.
Well it's people like (# posted by Anonymous : 9:40 PM) that make all call center workers look like morons. This guy can't even spell well enough to post a comment, that will help us all in the future. Some of what was said in this post was true other stuff was rumors and lies. Good luck finding another job. Best of luck to all the SMART workers that were there.
I hate it when someone makes fun of someone grammar.
Some people strongly believe if a person can't spell in a proper way?
They shouldn't have a voice!!!
Hey? Everyone tells me that my grammar is terrible but they could could here?
Anyone should be allowed to voice their opinion with being laughed at!!
P.S. Bad grammar in thiiss onneee???
Surre therre iss!!!!
:P
Post a Comment