Talk:Voce
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Untitled[edit]
What follows was sent to the news media in the Los Angeles area. Recipients of this information were KTLA, KABC, KCBS, KNBC, & KCAL.
January 23, 2008
Voce Wireless employees have not been paid. The company had recently been sold by Japanese company Faith Communications to SunCal. Prior to the sale, Voce suffered high cutbacks and layoffs as Faith Communications' commitment began to wane. The majority of severance check issued to the laid-off workers have bounced. Now that SunCal, who began their relationship as Voce clients, has taken ownership payroll has been delayed three times. The employees were given a last-minute cavalier alert to a two-day delay in their payroll, which ultimately expired. They were then alerted to further delay, and no clear timeframe was given them.
"...Failure to pay wages in good funds on the regular designated payday as prescribed in Labor Code Sections 204, 204b, 205, and 209, respectively, is a misdemeanor." Labor Code Section 215 (http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Paydays.htm)
Then, on Tuesday morning, the employees of the Voce Wireless corporate office in Beverly Hills arrived to worked to find the locks changed and entry to work barred. Then they collectively discovered that their cellular phones had been disabled and their phone numbers blocked from further "porting" to any other provider. It is believed by the Voce employees that this was a "divide and conquer" strategy to prevent the Glendale based call center from contacting their superiors or their Human Resource department.
As a result, yesterday at approximately 2:30 PM, the employees at the Voce Call center enacted a sit-down strike. The Voce Call center is the primary product of Voce Wireless. The operators there perform personal assistant duties for their wireless customers. This concept is the main selling point of Voce Wireless. "The World's First Premium Wireless Service." They refused to answer any calls from their clients while they waited to be contacted by the new owners at SunCal. Eventually, SunCal's Brian Richardson contacted them and proceeded to delve into red-tape double talk. It is said he gave no answers while attempting to talk the Care Center employees into resuming their duties. Then the call was taken over by apparent CEO Anthony Roselli who changed the tone. According to the Call Center, Roselli proceeded to berate the employees, verbally attack the recently locked-out superiors, and ultimately ordered the employees to vacate "his" building. It should be noted that Voce Wireless' Call Center is housed in a multi-use corporate building in Glendale, CA. No evidence has come to light that Mr. Roselli owns the property. SunCal is registered in Geneva, IL. He barked out that the employees should be grateful to have a job and offered no time frame of when they would be paid. When asked where he could be reached for further discussion he replied, "You do not contact me. I contact you."
In light of the lock-out of the Beverly Hills office, the Call Center employees chose not to vacate the premises and eventually opted to resume their duties. The decision was that, ultimately, it was not fair that their clients suffer. The Call Center workers do not expect to be paid by Friday. This would be two entire late pay periods. They hope to reconnect with their superiors and HR people in order to hammer out a future plan if restitution be reached.
CONTACTS:
Voce Call Center Glendale Corporate Center 425 E. Colorado St., Suite 450 Glendale, CA 91205 (866)-611-8623
February 1, 2008
New developments in Voce Wireless payroll scandal.
Glendale-based Voce Wireless employees have been on strike since Friday, Jan 25. They have not received wages for days worked after Dec. 31 2007. The last payroll delivered was Jan. 4. In the last week SunCal Fund, the new owners of Voce Wireless, has done some very shady business. Their wireless customers all pay their bills automatically by credit card for their monthly services. Without permission, SunCal Fund doubly charged their customers' cards. The customers have all now paid twice the current payment due without any prior knowledge. To make matters arguably worse, SunCal Fund has discontinued cellular service for all of the striking/unpaid employees and canceled all of their medical coverage. In summary, SunCal Fund has not paid their employees in over a month, canceled their medical coverage, disabled their cell phones, and all severance checks for previous lay-offs have bounced.
Amendment; February 1, 2008
It was not only Voce employees who lost cellular service without notice. It was every one of the 1000+ customers.
Voce: Open Source Speech Interaction[edit]
There is also an open source speech interaction project called Voce: http://voce.sourceforge.net/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.167.215.154 (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)