Wisconsin Town Reeling Over Closing of Lands' End Call Center

February 28, 2005
Wisconsin Town Reeling Over Closing of Lands' End Call Center
By AARON NATHANS

CROSS PLAINS, Wis.- This village of 3,084 lost two major employers in two years. But Lands' End was supposed to be different.

The company, known for its fleecy clothes and folksy sales pitch, has long been a great source of employment for people of Cross Plains, a 15-minute drive from Madison.

But Lands' End, which was acquired by Sears, Roebuck & Company two and a half years ago, announced this week that it would close its Cross Plains call center in June, putting the 200 people there out of work. They are among the 375 full- and part-time employees in Wisconsin who have lost their jobs in a revamping of the company. Additional seasonal employees will also be cut.

"It puts a lot of close-knit people out of work, said Diana Kolden, a Cross Plains resident taking a break at Sport Bowl, a four-lane bowling alley. "They worked for years and depended on that company. They burned us."

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/business/28retail.html?pagewanted=print&position=

eom

on where the jobs are going, and if they refused comment, then said so in the article.

I think K-Mart is aquiring and selling assets to try and return to solvency. It ain't gunna work just a lot of Americans will be badly hurt.

K-Mart got bought by Sears.

Internet sales don't require anybody to answer the phone and chat with customers. Just somebody to set up a database and interface it with the webpage.

Internet buying is convenient, but not many people are involved in the web end of things.

That's the corporatist motto. They thought they had to do it all before 2004. Who would ever think the majority would re-elect * (and I know it WAS stolen) or let the minority STEAL it again. Well guess what? We screwed up. Cross Plains is in Dane County which went 2-1 Kerry over * so they did the right thing.

What a shame. Get ready America! They're coming out, bold and proud, ready to screw your community, steal your jobs, and leave you with nothing. But * wouldn't do that because he's a good xtian. Oh yeah!

are burning American workers just as fast as they can.

this bodes very ill for the future. Even if jobs come back, what American worker will ever trust their employer again? This is a typically--tragically--short-sighted Murkan corporate strategy.

if "free trade" provided protection for products made in America

if the tax code incented employers to use American workers and penalized those who outsource overseas

if distribution channels (Wal Mart) were regulated and forced to be less predatory

if we had regulated capitalism

if other countries had enforced environmental regulations that didn't make irresponsible manufacturing practices easier offshore

if we had single-payer health care that did not involve employers

. . . . . .

American productivity is unequaled. Currently, American workers suffer more from the uneven international trade playing field and from the strong desire of the RW in Murka to destroy labor than they do from wage inequity.

Wages are a minor percentage of operating costs.

It's not just wages the Corporations wanna welsh out on. They do not want ANY regulations nor expenses. They do not want anyone to be able to sue, consumers and workers alike. They do not want any accountability, period.

What they seek is not 'open markets', 'fair trade', it's not even capitalism. They want total control over all aspects of society with no responsibilities at all.

They are almost in complete control of the mechanisms of government. It's called fascism. They will starve, pollute, maim and kill as they damned well please. Any one fool enough to believe there is any chance of any form of security is gonna be sorely disappointed. No one is safe from them. They will bribe, flatter and cajole people into doing shit to workers then they will ax them too. They will handsomely pay and flatter media personalities and then Rather them into silence.

No point in being a collaborator with these guys. It will not protect you to do their bidding, so you might as well fight them and at least go out with your ethics in tact. It is the ONLY thing they cannot take from you.*

* The preceeding has been a message to middle and upper management, dumb ass members of the Fourth Estate, government employees and those who alledgedly represent the People of The United States of America.

corporations.If people could understand that by doing the bidding of the corporations they are destroying themselves...

They have been watering down OSHA, EpA and other standards and laws. it is just astounding what is happening. It is a ruthlessness where profits become the only standard and they have been very good at indoctrinating the population that what's good for them is good for everybody. It is as bad as the line from the 1920s or whatever: what's good for GM is good for the US. And people are not putting it together.

But NOBODY will listen when I talk about it.

Why do we accept that soulless, consciousless, conscienceless businesses be treated the same as living, breathing humans in court?

Why do we accept that corporations may rip off their arms and create new corporations at will, when we cannot?

Why do we accept that we do not have the right to simply shut their doors if they ever harm the public?

Why are corporations considered "better" than humans in court? Oh, they're NOT?

But that's the overall effect, isn't it?

Why are corporations allowed to spend more on their case than the individual humans they sue? Why do we allow a bottomless legal bucket for these things that are not human?

Don't give me that tripe of "but people make up corporations." NO THEY DON'T. Corporations are made up of legal constructs that have no life outside of the paper their charters are written on. People merely work for them.

Living humans should always be given status over corporations, even in a court of law. Corporations do NOT deserve ANY rights!!! They are not human, and were never "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

We need to revisit Santa Clara Cty. v. Southern Pacific Rail. We need to overturn corporate personhood3- revoke it entirely- if we do not want our nation to crumble.

Will anyone at all listen to this?

Hello?

And I find it outrageous. Have ever since I first found out about it.

However, I'm not sure how to go about rewriting jurisprudence -- short of taking a case to the Supreme Court. And I doubt they'd take such a case if I (or anyone) could even put themselves in a position to do such a thing.

I am pretty sure they did. Don't let the door hit you on your ass......

Wisconsin voted for Kerry by about 10,000 votes. Dane County includes Madison, and was:

Kerry 66.0% 181,052
Bush 33.0% 90,369
Other 1.0% 2,828

I don't know how much of that vote is just the Madison vote, but I am inclined to give these people of Cross Point my sympathy and best wishes.

I have a vacation home in Door County and I would be so uncomfortable going there each summer and spending money if Bush had won the state. Now I can visit and relax, altho my Repub. brother in law probably isn't too happy his state went blue.

I'll plead guilty. I've been buying from Land's End for a couple of decades. Recently I've taken a real liking to the comfort, price and styling of their shoes and boots.

But how do I order? Why the convenience of the internet. It's become so damn convenient, though not probably that big a time savings to just click and buy instead of using one of those call center operators.

And if there is a problem or ? - then it's email or the IM software they have.

How about when you shop? Do you love the convenience of the self-checkout?

Do you order books and other items on the web instead of going to the independent shop?

Come on, be honest.

instances of identity theft, I order by phone now. I do the order on line but phone it in. I have been shopping Land's End 4 many years and I noticed many Land's End dependables have been disappearing since Sears bought them. I hate Sears; have always received rotten/rude service; lemon kenmores and fall apart craftsmen. Just my luck I guess. Well, check land's end off my list. I sure do like the boots I got from them though.

That's why large companies buy up the smaller niche market companies. It's not because they NEED that company...It's to sell off what assets they have, and put them out of business..

This is the republican way of doing business.. They did to to rdaio, tv, newspapers, publishing, manufacturing.

Stifle competition..no matter how big or small..:puke:

I guess the self checkout is too obviously costing someone a job, and truthfully I never stopped to think about the jobs lost in local stores by my purchasing on the internet... sigh. my bad.

UPS closed a facility the other day. I would have thought at least those employees would have some sort of job security.

The guy who has our local route (we are WAY off the beaten path) has already had a heart attack of two. Guess they just plan on working all the remaining employees to death in order to close a facility and save a few bucks?

and l;aid off 4 full time cashiers, i will never use a self check out.

has nothing but the self-checkout open!

And they suck everyone in cause they offer .10 a gallon off gas for every $50 spent. So with the price of gas it can add up to some decent savings.

even if it is low-paid. What is so amazing is the grocery store and other stores are the places unemployed people go when they lose their jobs. You would always see signs: help wanted at these places. Not anymore. When there is absolutely NO place to work, will peoplethen start getting real about what is happening in this country?

i buy from lands' end, too. i buy their flannel sheets. the prices are great and well as their customer service. they actually answer the phone! no 'push 1 now' crap. they have high quality kids' clothes, too, at good prices. we only have a wal-mart where i live, so we all do a LOT of catlog shopping.

i didn't know they'd been bought out by sears! yuck.

books ---> me, amazon and a debit card late at night is a dangerous combination!

i have never heard of self-checkout. but then again, we are about 10 years (literally!!) behind the times.......

This industry is becoming more and more brutal.

Just like in other industries, firing workers (doing more with less), corporate consolidation, outsourcing to temporary agencies, and benefits cutting are the game today. It's the only way to maintain profitability in many cases, given the increasing competition. Who suffers? Workers, big surprise.

I worked for a smaller company (than-Lands End) as a call center supervisor for almost five years. We competed in the same niche as Lands End, with an emphasis on clothing for yuppies who like to travel and have disposable cash. Those days are coming to an end.

When the Republicans came into true power in 2001, the bottom dropped out of sales. Keep in mind, a lot of people out there were quick to blame this on 9/11, but I can tell you that the downturn in sales came months before that, almost immediately as soon as Bush took office.

Why? Because customers who buy from these small-to-medium sized companies are by and large upper-middle class.

When sales dropped, guess who was the first to go? Middle managers and supervisors. The pressure was incredible. I was expected to meet sales goals for my team that were completely unrealistic, and at the same time my team was increased in size by 50%, a situation not unlike that of a teacher in an overcrowded classroom.

It's also true that the shrinking pool of middle-class customers has increasingly switched to the internet. I temped (for less than one-third of my previous salary) for a different mail order company this last holiday season, and over 50% of their sales now come in over the web. Most callers I helped were just confused about return policy or shipping, things that might not be clear on the website, otherwise the percentage would have been much higher.

Ironically, there are more call center workers in my state now than five years ago, but the jobs are largely in banks and insurance companies that treat their employees like dirt.

Today is my fiftieth birthday, and I am sure that I'll never be hired as a regular employee again, despite my thirty years of experience in customer service. I'll never make a family wage again in that industry.

Being a call center worker today means accepting less, working more and crappier hours, and still having no job security.

Expect more of the same...it's a largely unseen part of the Wal-Martization of Amerika.

:hi::party::toast::beer:

I just turned 52 last month. 30 years ago, I thought life would be slowing down at age 52 as I would have slipped into a comfortable groove that would carry me to retirement and beyond. Now I'm not so sure. It seems many of us will be clawing and scratching well beyond 52 just to make ends meet...

:toast:

Here's to retirement, if we ever get there! :hi:

Mine was last Thursday. 57. And thanks for sharing your story -- gut-wrenching as it is. I wish I could say something wildly cheerful and optimistic, but I'm fresh out of those. Best of luck to you, tho.

and i just ordered from them.

SUV and pickup driving republicans are simply stupid to
allow gay marriage to jump ahead of their economic needs.

We've been shopping with Lands' End for over 12 years. If it can be had from them, we buy it before shopping with other retailers. We know that those dollars are supporting American families, not to mention purchasing goods that are NOT made in sweat shops. Their customer service people are the best in the United States, with the only exception being Vermont Country Store. They outstrip Nordstrom in their effort to please their customers, and I've previously spent a lot of quality time at the local Nordstrom's. :scared:

If you're as angry as I am with the above news, feel free to give Jackie Schutty a call. She's mentioned in the article, and the number is 800/356-4444. Her extension is 6825. I just left her a lengthy message re: layoffs, especially since it took me THREE DAYS to get through Lands' End's telephones to order holiday items this year.

I like talking to a person when I need to make a purchase.

GRRRRRR.

Julie