Fire Ken Lewis Since we Own Bank of America

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Tuesday April 28, 2009 · 8:41 AM PDT

2009/04/28 · 08:41

You would think that after recieving almost $200 billionfrom the American taxpayer that Bank of America would simply love Americans. However, it now appears that Bank of America should change it's name to Bank of India and come begging and groveling to the people of that country for a bailout. That is because after recieving hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars, Bank of America has decided to create jobs- in India.

Yes, filed under the sad but true category Bank of America has taken American TARP funds and used them to create jobs in India:

Earlier this month, Bank of New York Mellon, which received $3 billion in TARP funds, opened its third call center in Pune, India, where it now employs 1,300 people.

Doug Brown, who wrote "The Black Book of Outsourcing," said Bank of America, with $52.5 billion of TARP funds in the kitty, has expanded its India-based payroll to 5 percent of its 301,000 employees in 2009, about 15,000 people.

The moves, which have outraged unions, are 100 percent legal. Congress didn't put into the TARP law any restrictions on shipping jobs overseas.

http://www.nypost.com/...

The other sad part is that while they are expanding their workforce in India, Bank of America has chosen to take American TARP funds and actually fire American workers.As an added insult to the workers who bailed his company out, CEO Ken Lewis actually had the audacity to call it courage:

As it expands, BofA has closed call centers, outsourced back-office jobs to India, and cut tens of thousands of jobs to turn record profits from its series of buyouts. Lewis says, "I feel bad about firing people, but at least I have the courage to do it." Since 2004, the bank has cut over 34,000 jobs, including:

12,500 jobs after the Fleet Bank merger in 2004
4,500 additional jobs after restructuring Fleet Bank
6,000 jobs after acquiring credit card issuer MBNA in 2006
4,000 jobs in Illinois and Michigan following the LaSalle Bank merger in 2007
7,500 jobs after the Countrywide merger in 2008

http://www.seiu.org/...

I have some better words for it Mr. Lewis. How about shameless greed? How about economic treason? It is hard for me to fathom how someone could just steal billions from American taxpayers, fire American workers and then call that courage. Even worse, look at Ken Lewis's pay as compared to the workers he fired:

Ken Lewis 2006 compensation: $99,800,000
Median salary for a BofA teller: $23,597
Job cuts announced since 2004: 69,500

http://www.seiu.org/...

Here is a video that sums up Ken Lewis and Bank of America in a nutshell:

Now, it is time we fought back against these outrages. The very people who crashed our economy, stole our money to bailout their own failures are now using that money to fire our workers and send even more American jobs overseas. This greed borders on treason. Please join me in DEMANDING that Bank of America immediately fires Ken Lewis:

http://action.seiu.org/...

It is time we take back our economy for those who make it work, the hardworking underappreciated American worker who is being shafted daily by the greediest and least patriotic among us. Folks like Ken Lewis.

While we are at it, lets all write our Congress critters and Senators and let them know that we are outraged that American taxpayer dollars are being used to subsidize American jobs being outsourced. Talk about insult to injury!!!

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