UBS To Cut Stamford Jobs. How Many? No Word Yet

The Swiss Bank UBS, which employs thousands of workers in Connecticut, will cut 10,000 jobs globally over the next three years. But the company is disputing a report that 3,000 of those jobs will be lost in the state.

At the announcement of the worldwide job losses, company officials said that one quarter of those workers would lose their jobs in Switzerland – which has strict rules about disclosing such things – but gave no details on where the other cuts would come. Due to what company officials called an “incorrect extrapolation” of percentages during the conference call with reporters  a number – 3,000 layoffs – was attributed to Connecticut.  UBS now says that number is wrong – but won’t give details on how many losses are expected in the state or when that number will be available.

Sources tell WNPR that the number is more likely in the “low hundreds.”

The company has been floundering – and awash in controversy over a 2 billion dollar loss by a so-called “rogue trader.”  UBS had just announced thousands of layoffs last August when it cut a deal with the state of Connecticut to stay in it’s massive downtown Stamford Headquarters - they’d been rumored to leave for Manhattan.  Under the deal, only officially signed this May, UBS would retain a minimum of 2,000 workers in Connecticut over the next five years in exchange for a $20-million dollar investment from the state.

Company officials said today that no matter how many cuts eventually are made in Connecticut, they are committed to honoring that  agreement.  And Catherine Smith, Commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, says she takes the company at its word.

“We do have to have to trust them to some degree during the time being.  But so far, we’re not hearing anything from Stamford itself, from some of the residents and the  people who work there that would indicate that anything other than the truth has been given to us so far,” she said.

The company does not disclose exact jobs figures in each of it’s many global offices, but it currently employs roughly 3500 workers in Stamford. By year’s end, an audit – as part of its agreement with the state – should reveal the true workforce numbers.

Election Night!

 

Real Art Ways is THE place to be on Election Night! 

Our own Colin McEnroe and John Dankosky will broadcast LIVE from our cinema (with many special guests of course), reporting and providing commentary as the results roll in. 

Join us! There will be snacks and cocktails, and free WiFi to facilitate your celebratory tweets or appalled Facebook statuses.

America!

Hurricane Sandy Map

As we await Sandy’s arrival to Connecticut and we all have power, check out the ongoing map project we’re working on. We’ll add things like shelters, closures, flooding and anything else that might be helpful to others. If you have any information to add to the map, either leave us a comment here, tweet us @wherewelive, or email wherewelive@wnpr.org. We’ll be updating this on an on-going basis.

***Update*** The map is open for anyone to edit. If you’ve never added a marker to a Google Map before, you can find instructions at goo.gl/fHKoq. Feel free to contact us with information too and we’ll get it up if that’s easier!

View Larger Map

Hurricane Sandy Coverage

It seems whenever our fearless leader John Dankosky leaves town, we are hit with a major storm. So it happens again. We were planning on airing reruns Monday and Tuesday next week, but because of the storm we’ll now have full Sandy coverage on our newscasts and three local talk shows. Depending on the severity of the storm, there may be live evening coverage as well. (Make sure you have batteries in your portable radio!) Stay tuned to this blog, and our @wherewelive and @wnpr twitter feed for details. Stay safe! And have a great weekend.

Coming Up! October 22 to 26, 2012

Reason number 432 why WNPR listeners are the best: We surpassed our overall goal during the fall membership campaign! Thank you thank you thank you to all of you who pledged. Hopefully you picked up some mugs, book, and (awesome balsam) wreaths.

JD is out this week, but we have some great shows for you:

MONDAY: Presidential Magazine
Tonight’s the night we’ve all been waiting for…the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. After one strong performance each, the series goes to a tiebreaker. So today to celebrate, where we live, we’ll talk Presidents and politics. First – highlights of a “mock” presidential debate between two prominent Connecticut politicians at Central Connecticut State University last week. Ned Lamont has Obama’s back. Tom Foley is in Romney’s corner. It’s ON! This week is also the 50th anniversary of Cuban Missile Crisis – we’ll look at how secret recordings JFK made help us understand the aftermath of this complicated time. And we’ll look at the life John Quincy Adams. The first son of a founding father to be president, he left written diaries covering 65 years of history – and they tell the story of a man who lived a nearly “superhero” life.

TUESDAY: Medical Marketing
Before entering the waiting room, you may already have expectations of what you want from your doctor. Advertisements and public service announcements on TV, billboards and in magazines may be the reason you’re at the doctor’s office in the first place. How does medical marketing directly to patients affect health care costs and care? WNPR reporter Jeff Cohen hosts a conversation with the state health care advocate, doctors and health reporters about this practice. Does marketing impact your own health care decisions?

WEDNESDAY: A Conversation, or Two
MSNBC political analyst and Salon.com editor Joan Walsh says that our nation has been slowly tearing itself apart along racial, class and economic lines. So she’s asking the big – and provocative question “what’s the matter with white people?” She says that the country’s majority racial group is longing for a golden age that never was. Coming up Walsh will join us. She’ll be at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center tonight. We’ll also sit down with producer Aengus Anderson, who is on his third cross country interview expedition – this time talking to BIG thinkers about the future. We’ll get all philosophical, and hear some voices from his podcast “The Conversation.”

THURSDAY: Goodnight Blue Moon (rebroadcast)
Today, we’re in our studio 3 for some live music with the New Haven indie-folk band “Goodnight Blue Moon.” They’ve been playing as a band in the area since 2008…but many of them have been playing songs together for much, much longer. Erik Elligers is the lead singer and plays guitar. His wife Nancy plays cello and his brother Sean plays trumpet. Along with Mathew Crowley and Henry Lugo, they’ll be playing songs from the band’s new record, “How Long.” They’re part of an indie-folk movement that has essentially taken over traditional folk festivals like Newport, and has launched bands like the Avett Brothers to stardom. We’ll hear some songs played live – and talk about making music with Goodnight Blue Moon.

FRIDAY: Prison Reentry
WNPR reporter Diane Orson guest-hosts today, following up on her “NPR Cities” reporting about incarceration costs and prison reentry. We’ll talk about Connecticut’s past prison buildup, and the state’s current strategy. We’ll look at programs that are helping former inmates get a second chance.

 

Coming Up! October 15 to 19, 2012

MONDAY: The Art of Debate
We’ve seen some interesting political debates in the past couple of weeks. On Monday we’ll talk about candidates sparring – as well as “the art of debate,” how debate skills are taught in high school, and how debate training might apply to daily life or figuring out who should get your vote.

TUESDAY: Where We Vote: Jim Himes
We wrap up our 2012 Where We Vote series with incumbent 4^th District Congressman Jim Himes. He entered office in 2008 with the Obama wave and this year he’s up against Navy veteran and businessman Steve Obsitnik. We’ll talk to Rep. Himes in the studios of WVOF at Fairfield University about the economy, healthcare and foreign policy. You can join the conversation and ask questions of Jim Himes on the next Where We Live.

WEDNESDAY: The Rail Show
We talk a lot about the future of high-speed rail. But how did we get to where we are today? We’ll talk about the expansion of rail throughout the U.S. from the construction of the transcontinental railroad also known as “Hell on Wheels,” to today’s Amtrak ride which some people think is a different type of hell. We’ll talk to the author of a book about some of the political battles surrounding the transcontinental railroad called The Great American Railroad War.

THURSDAY: Gary Knell (rebroadcast)
After the high profile resignation of NPR’s former CEO, the organization needed a fresh start. A year ago, Gary Knell took over. NPR faced criticism over the firing of Juan Williams and the undercover sting on a NPR fundraising executive caught bashing the Tea Party. After the search for a new CEO, the NPR board hired Gary Knell - then the CEO of Sesame Workshop. Upon the announcement, he acknowledged that NPR was caught in Washington’s political cross hairs over funding. So how’s the job been so far? We’ll talk with Knell about the organization’s recovery from controversy and the future of public radio.

FRIDAY: Casino Show
Two recent books tackle the issue of casino gambling in Connecticut from very different perspectives. Skip Bronson was one of the developers trying to build a casino in Hartford – a deal that was eventually called off just before the state announced plans with the Native American tribes. We’ll talk with Bronson about his latest book, The War at the Shore. We’ll also talk to former Congressman Robert Steele about his book, The Curse: Big-Time Gambling’s Seduction of a Small New England Town. It’s a novel set in a small fictional Connecticut town, but it’s set against the real-life story of the development of gaming in this state.

Coming Up! October 8-12, 2012

We’re offering this mug for a $65 contribution to WNPR.

Welcome to our October FUNdraiser! This is your chance to support WNPR and Where We Live and we still have our favorite thank-you item: the John Dankosky mug. Thanks to everyone who has supported WNPR already and if you’d like to jump on the bandwagon, go here or call 800-584-2788.

Other than that, here’s what’s happening this week on WWL:

MONDAY: The Education Bubble (rerun)

American children are taught from their earliest years that education is the path toward the prosperity and social mobility embodied in the ideals of the American Dream. To realize this goal, President Obama looks to educate more American students than any other nation by 2030, in part through low-interest federally-subsidized loans. While the loans have spurred significant increases in college enrollment, they may also be responsible, in part, for escalating college tuition, high student loan debt, and a glut of college graduates in jobs unable to pay back the value of their investment. Increasingly, economists, journalists, and policy-makers are questioning whether we have an education bubble that must inevitably burst. On Where We Live, we want to continue the conversation Are we spending more on college than it is worth– or not enough? Is the value of college less than the cost or do colleges need to become more productive places? Why is college so expensive?

TUESDAY: Sugar

The dangers of sugar are gaining the attention of consumers nationwide, possibly accelerated by the New York City ban on large sodas and sugar-sweetened beverages sold in their food establishments and by physicians speaking out about the potential link between ingestion of sugar and disease. We are learning that calories are not all metabolized in our bodies in the same way, or with the same effect, possibly contributing to the chronic illnesses of obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes that are driving health-care costs up and the quality of our lives down. Join Yale’s Dr. Kelly Brownell, nationally recognized for his work on obesity, as we talk about sugar, health, and policy.

WEDNESDAY: Gov. Malloy, Dan Esty, and CT’s Comprehensive Energy Strategy

The Malloy administration has been previewing and hinting at what will be in the state’s new energy policy. On Friday, we got to see the details of the plan, which focus on converting to natural gas and additional energy efficiency. Governor Dannel Malloy and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commission Dan Esty join us in-studio to discuss the plan and answer your questions.

THURSDAY: Steve Obsitnik

Congressman Jim Himes rode the Obama wave to the House of Representatives in 2008. This year, he’s trying to hold onto his seat in a competitive race against Republican businessman Steve Obsitnik. We’ll sit down with Obsitnik in the studios of WVOF for the next installment of our Where We Vote series. As always, you can join the conversation on-air and online!

FRIDAY: Magazine

To start the program, we’ll speak with Connecticut Mirror reporter Jacqueline Rabe Thomas and state Senator Beth Bye on the upheaval in the state Board of Regents. Regent President Robert Kennedy is being pressured to step down after mistakenly authorizing twenty-one executive pay raises without board approval. Thomas, who broke the story, and chair of the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee Bye discuss the public outrage that has followed. We’ll also talk about a fairly new way to approach medical care, focusing on the “Patient Centered Medical Home.” Alta Lash and Victoria Veltri join us to  explain the concept and patients’ closer relationship with their primary care doctor. And finally, we’ll discuss the life of musician Jackie McLean. The saxophone player learned jazz in Harlem from some of the greats, later sitting in for Charlie Parker and recording with Miles Davis. Yet drugs took their toll on his talent. McLean later found redemption as a teacher and community leader in Hartford. Derek Ansell will be with us to speak on his book, Sugar Free Saxophone: The Life and Music of Jackie McLean.

 

Murphy Camp Learns From McMahon: Media Doesn’t Matter

by JD -

Chris Murphy is in a tie with Linda McMahon, and trailing her in “favorability” rating. Now his campaign staff has backed out of a promise to come on Where We Live.

I expected McMahon to dodge our request for an hour-long call-in show - she’s been disciplined about avoiding the press and given her continued success in the polls, she has no reason to change course now.

Murphy’s another matter. He doesn’t have the funds to buy media attention whenever he wants, and he’s very good at “free” appearances on shows like Where We Live. In fact, along with fellow Congressman Joe Courtney, Murphy has appeared on our show more than just about anyone.  When he’s on the show, Murphy is happy to answer tough questions and talk about policy, politics, whatever. He is, by all accounts, a fan of public broadcasting.  And in this week of Big Bird bashing, we need all the help we can get. 

But trying to schedule a sit-down with him for our “Where We Vote” series has been a nightmare. It finally ended last night when the campaign’s communications director Ben Marter flatly broke a promise to have his candidate appear for an hour on Monday October 8.

Marter gave me a “guarantee” that Murphy would appear for an hour on Monday October 8th after backing out of two previous dates that they had chosen.  Yesterday morning in an email, Marter changed the terms, telling us that Murphy would be leaving at 9:30 AM. I asked Marter why, and he later told me “It was a scheduling issue.” I told him that’s not how it works.

But long before that, the writing was on the wall. In correspondence with producer Tucker Ives, Marter openly worried about planted phone calls from McMahon staff.  I explained to him on two occasions that our policy is to screen all incoming calls, and to present a program that’s fair to both the candidate and listeners. Murphy himself knows this – it’s why he loves coming on Where We Live as a sitting congressman (more often than not, his appearances coincide with unsolicited requests from his office to come on the air).  Despite their candidate’s demonstrated ability to handle himself on live radio, it now seems clear that Murphy’s staff:

1. Has no interest in their candidate engaging in an open, long-form conversation with public radio listeners at this point in the campaign.
2. Has no interest in honoring commitments made by top campaign officials.
3. Is unnecessarily frightened by the specter of tough questioning from unfriendly callers.

Given that the campaign has so far allowed McMahon to paint him as a mortgage deadbeat, and serial skipper of committee meetings, you’d think that they’d make every effort to honor agreements and show up when scheduled.

And it’s not just Where We Live. As the Connecticut Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas tells us, he’s increasingly had to shout questions at Murphy from afar, and that the candidate now meets with the media only in “carefully chosen settings.” Reporters tell me that he’s still more accessible than McMahon, but not by much.

In this campaign cycle, journalists have increasingly become seen as a nuisance in a race to win at all costs, while informing the public as little as possible. But in this case, Murphy’s communications team denies his candidate a chance to describe McMahon’s own problems with her finances, and to paint a sharp contrast between her press inaccessibility and his openness. As one veteran political analyst told me: In a race this tight, if you’ve got some high ground, protect it.

Kudos to Elizabeth Esty and Andrew Roraback, who are running in an equally bruising race for congress for both having the guts and character to answer questions from their constituents on Where We Live. And, I’m looking forward to upcoming conversations with 4th district candidates Jim Himes and Steve Obsitnik on the show.

Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure that if a hypothetical President Mitt Romney decides to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS, public broadcasting will have the support of Senator Chris Murphy. But if that pledge comes from Murphy’s campaign staffers, I’m not gonna take their word for it.