Integrity at an Indiana call center

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From TPM's Greg Sargent:

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told [by supervisors], 'If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day.'"

Those 40 people or so deserve our admiration and applause. They knew a vicious, dirty smear when they read it, and were told to repeat it, and gave up some of their pay, at what is surely low-paying work, every last hard-earned cent of which is no doubt important to them.

They didn't have to do it, and it was not without risk, but they took a firm stand for decency and for their own integrity. Good for them.