MBNA to close four facilities in Maine, N.H., Calif.

ROCKLAND, Maine — Credit card company MBNA will close a major call center in Rockland and an education center in Northport, along with a smaller call center in Dover, N.H., officials said Monday. A California facility also will be closed.

The Rockland center, with 300 employees, and the Dover center, with 50 employees, will close by April; the Northport education facility, with 50 employees, will close in May, said Brian Dalphon, director of media relations.

Also, MBNA will close its only call center in California in Aliso Viejo, where 170 people are employed, by mid-April, Dalphon said.

...

Maine has the biggest concentration of MBNA workers outside of Delaware, where MBNA is headquartered.

http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D88QVOE81-72.shtml

And both Maine Senators voted for the bankruptcy bill. What a surprise! :eyes:

Vote Yes, Lose 350 Jobs at home.

So long as the Senators don't lose theirs, the math's okay.

Ugh.

You were both just used and discarded like Kleenex. How's it feel to reap such a rich reward for looking after your constituent's interests?

and where did they go?????

(maybe the same place all those shoe factory jobs went the '70's and '80's????????)

I kept feeling stupid...everyone writes about MBNA like they know it...
So I googled it hoping to find out...

Well MBNA _is_ MBNA!


Sort of like my doctoral alma mater, Texas A&M, where A and M no longer stand for anything.

according to a google of 'MBNA beginnings'
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/business/botline/fall_98/9_24/lerner.html

one of Bu$h**'s bagmen ...

Bush's Bagmen
Meet the Pioneers and Rangers, the president's A-team for campaign cash by By Barry Yeoman, Rolling Stone, March 10, 2004

The Repo Man

In 1999, Charles Cawley threw a cocktail party at his summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, inviting 200 people to greet the town's most famous part-time resident, George W. Bush. The oceanfront soiree raised $200,000 for the candidate -- but Cawley wasn't acting purely out of neighborly good will. As the head of MBNA America Bank, the nation's biggest independent issuer of credit cards, Cawley wanted Bush to push for a new law making it harder for families hit by unemployment or huge medical bills to declare bankruptcy. Sure enough, not long after taking office, Bush backed the measure -- which would add $75 million a year to MBNA's bottom line. Last November, Cawley returned the favor by inviting Laura Bush to his Delaware home to greet 120 supporters -- raising $150,000 for her husband's re-election.
http://www.bushpresident2004.com/pioneers-and-rangers.htm

challenge Snowe in 2006. She has followed, faithfully, the party line all the way, has no innovative initiatives, unles it is on safe issues. It is time she is ousted.
She is no Margaret Chase Smith, although probably seeking to enhance that myth to apply to herself. She has become a Bush robot. We need more than this Republican toady in Maine representing the people. This state went for Kerry. Snowe is a traitor to her consitutents . And Collins is just as much a coward and a toady as Snowe but she is not up in 2006.

Both of them do the talk because they have learned how to do that, but do not do the walk. They are amateurs.

We need someone who will represent the people and not MBNA and who recognizes fascism when it shows it's ugly face and has the courage to stand against it.


Snowe and Collins, has not that courage. She is a robotic and timid puppet of George Bush while trying to convince us she is really sincere in her efforts to serve her people. Not.

I went to the state library in Augusta today, It has been hurt by Bush's cuts and has had to, according to the librarian, cut it's hours. Swell.

And I am sure that MBNA , which has changed the landscape of an old Maine town with it's slick, well landscaped,huge complex, will soon open a public library to serve the public and Snowe will cut the ribbon to this hypothetical privatized library. :eyes:

where are you?

180

played on MI Governor Jim Blanchard-- maybe its time for Michael Moore to do a Brucie and Me flick about MBNA CEO Bruce Hammond.

When MBNA first came to Maine, they came with checkbook wide open and promises of jobs and "free" gifts. And of course, Mainers thought Santa claus had arrived. But their MO is to sweep into town, spend a lot of money building facilities, hiring tons of people, and dictating to townspeople exactly what they wanted. They caused real estate prices to skyrocket out of the reach of the locals. they end up absorbing much of the local work force, causing other employers to leave town. then suddenly, MBNA moves out, leaving a town with brand new buildings but a stunned economy.

Yes, and you're right -- that's a lot of jobs for a town like rockland to lose!