We are Bank of America call center workers. Every day, we help customers with their daily account needs from handling deposits to opening credit card accounts. We are dedicated employees, and value giving our customers the best service possible. However, the bank often does not provide us with training that prepares us to adequately and ethically serve our customers. Much of the training call center employees do receive happens online with no facilitator and no opportunity to ask questions. At work, neither our team leaders nor company’s help desk are able to answer many of our questions that arise. What’s worse: our team leaders and managers are never held accountable when they give us inaccurate information which means that we’re the ones who end up being disciplined and even fired. Team leaders and managers should receive a higher level of training than the associates who report to them, so that they are experts in our policies and procedures. When we take leaves of absence, we’re not given enough time to be trained on new procedures to ensure we’re doing everything according to up-to-date standards. Not only is this frustrating for us as employees, it means that customers won’t get the best possible service. In fact, due to strict performance metrics for employees, we are encouraged to limit our time spent with clients instead of taking the time to answer all of their concerns. We want to be able to do right by our customers and keep our jobs. We have seen too many of our co-workers get fired for making mistakes that adequate training could have prevented. We are asking that independent, federally-guided training be implemented immediately for employees and managers alike. ** UPDATE (from March 2015)! Since we started speaking out about these issues, we’ve seen some improvements to our training. For example, Bank of America introduced a new online banking feature that allows employees to use their mouse to guide their client and navigate them through the online system. But we still need more improvements. Specifically, we would like to see more and up-to-date training on credit cards (that takes into account federal regulations and training); better online banking training; and diligent training and cross training of managers to ensure that they are fully prepared to assist us in handling any difficult situations that arise. We need this to be consistent and up to date so that it reflects the needs of customers and accountability of the bank.

I came to Australia in March on a student visa, and while studying here, I decided to take a job as a contract cleaner at Brisbane Airport. While working at the airport, I witnessed my employer harass and abuse several of my female colleagues. Until now, everyone was too afraid to speak out. That all changed last week, when five brave women came forward to alert authorities of harassment and sexual abuse they experienced at Brisbane Airport. These women are international students who say their employer forced himself on them in locked rooms, and threatened them with deportation if they resisted. He offered them rides home, then drove into dark alleys with an expectation of sexual favours. And in case there was any confusion about his intent, they say he openly and unapologetically fired any woman who resisted him. Right now, these women are scared of being kicked out of Australia for speaking out -- the very thing they were threatened with by their accused abuser. No one should be punished for alerting police of illegal abuse. As the contractor's employer, BAC needs to speak out in support of these workers remaining in Australia. All the women I work with know what this guy is like, and while he has never done anything to me, I was warned about him when I started working at the airport. I've seen so many young people come here to study, and many have taken on work with airport contractors to cover basic expenses. Some of these contractors are fair-minded, lawful businesses. But too many contractors rely on shadowy business practices to keep costs low. It's in this environment that sexual harassment has been allowed to thrive. The Brisbane Airport cleaning contractor accused of sexually abusing these women should be fired, and if found guilty, jailed. But it's also important that we prevent this from ever happening again. I don't want Brisbane Airport to ever again be the scene of exploitation and abuse. BAC should take steps to ensure that all airport workers are protected from potential exploitation. If enough airport employees, customers and members of the public speak out, Julieanne Alroe will listen. Please add your name and share with others. Together, we can repair the damage that's been done, and make Brisbane Airport a safer workplace for all its workers.

The LA Times recently reported that roughly 30 Wells Fargo branch employees in the L.A. area tried to meet sales goals by opening accounts that were never used. Lying and cheating should never be tolerated in the workplace -- especially at a financial institution. But the situation also suggests that Wells Fargo take stock of its community banking program and the sales goals employees are pressured to meet each week. According to the Times, the pressure to meet sales goals can be intense. Managers have required sales agents to stay late and call their friends and family members to open accounts in order to meet sales objectives. Sales at all costs is no way to build trust with our communities. Everyone has unique banking needs, and Wells Fargo employees pride themselves on being able to deliver quality products to individuals and community businesses. But when aggressive sales goals compete with customers' needs, one side always wins. We're calling on Wells Fargo to immediately review its community banking program and lower excessive sales targets for team members. Photo credit: http://bit.ly/16vf2lK

http://youtu.be/E8lKrbD2U84 Dear Mr. Thompson, My name is Jorge Rios. I’m a student guestworker from Argentina who came to the U.S. on the State Department’s J-1 Summer Work Travel Program, together with other students from Latin America and Asia. We paid $3,000-4,000 each to come to the United States on this program, expecting a cultural exchange and good work that would let us earn back this money over three months and travel a bit at the end. Instead, we became exploited workers at McDonald’s restaurants in Pennsylvania. We had terrible working and housing conditions. We faced threats, stolen wages, grease burns up and down our arms. We were only used to enrich our employer. We expected to have 40 hours of work a week, but we were given as little as four hours a week at the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The employer knew we were desperate for more hours, and he kept us on call to come in with 30 minutes’ notice all day and night. I didn’t even have time to visit the public library. If we ever answered that we couldn’t work a shift—if someone was sick or exhausted when they got a call at 4 in the morning—the managers retaliated by giving us even less hours. We could not quit because we knew that if we did, our visas would be cancelled. One manager told us, “You better remember, all we have to do is make one phone call and we can deport you back to your country at any time.” Our employer Andy Cheung charged us $300 each per month to live in basement apartments he owned. As many as eight of us lived in a single basement. We slept on bunkbeds made for children that shook and squeaked. We had no privacy whatsoever. When we talked to the U.S. workers alongside us, we learned that they were being exploited too. They told us they also faced too few hours, threats from managers, and unpaid overtime. This is not the America we believed in. We believe America is a beautiful country, where everyone can have respect and fair treatment at work. We decided to stand up for ourselves, for other J-1 student guestworkers, and for U.S. workers. Today, with the support of the National Guestworker Alliance, my fellow students and I held a surprise work stoppage at the McDonald’s where we worked. We met with allies from the community, with local workers, and with unemployed people. We told our stories, and said that no one should have to experience what we did. We asked to meet with our employer Andy Cheung, but he refused. So we are respectfully asking you, as President and CEO of McDonald’s: 1. That McDonald’s pay us students back all the money we are owed, including the money we spent to come work for the company, unpaid overtime, and housing overcharges; 2. That McDonald’s offer full-time work to its U.S. workers, who are struggling with too few hours; 3. That McDonald’s reveal all the stores where it employs guestworkers, and sign an agreement with the National Guestworker Alliance to guarantee basic labor standards for them, including protections from retaliation when workers organize against abuse. Sincerely, Jorge Rios and the McDonald’s J-1 Student Guestworkers