Другий відеофрагмент

Стенограма виступу: My name is Cara Alcantar, and I'm a laid-off WorldCom employee from Phoenix, Arizona.

On June 28, WorldCom announced a mass layoff that included everyone in my department. I can't say I was surprised by the announcement, for reasons I'll talk about later, but I was still in a state of shock. What happened? What went wrong? Was it our fault?

I've never endured a layoff before. It was probably stage one right after I was laid off when I felt like I did something wrong, like I was being held responsible for WorldCom falling apart.

Stage two is depression. I feel like what's the point of getting another job, look what happened to this one. All of my co-workers are nervous about taking new jobs at big corporations. We worked hard for a big company that said it was an innovative leader and promised tremendous growth. Instead, we lost everything.

Things started to look bad for us at the beginning of the year when WorldCom announced that we would not receive any raises or pay increases. Our free long distance was taken away, and our free coffee and cups at work were taken away. Also, upper management and executives started resigning and jumping ship.

We were told that WorldCom needed to take these cost-cutting measures in the best interests of the company, so we carried on. Yet it almost felt that I had done something wrong, since I was the one being punished.

Last Wednesday was my department's final day at WorldCom. We turned in our badges, exchanged hugs, and we went our separate ways. Again, we believed that cutting our department was in the best interest of the business, but it was hard to shake off the feeling of being punished.

As if being laid off wasn't enough, I also have to deal with losing my 401(k) investment. Our 401(k) was the only retirement plan we had at WorldCom.

For two years, I invested 100 percent of my contribution, plus 100 percent of my employers match in WorldCom stock. Even to this day, I never sold a share of WorldCom stock.

I thought this was the right thing to do. I didn't have to put so much of my money in WorldCom. Unlike Enron, I had a choice between stock or cash. When my colleagues asked me why I put so much money in WorldCom, I told them, why wouldn't I invest in the company that I based my career on.

Yes, I had choices, and there are no guarantees. But I believed it was important to place value in my company and its growth. That was the problem. All this growth was based on amounts and projections based on false information.

That is a huge problem. It's not just my problem, because I am out of a job and a 401(k), but it's also the thousands of other employees who invested many more years than myself and thousands more dollars into the company. And it's a problem for their families and the integrity of corporate America.