Company fires 2,700 workers while they were sleeping days before Thanksgiving

A Mississippi-based furnishings firm abruptly fired almost 2,7000 employees within the US simply days earlier than Thanksgiving, based on a number of experiences.

Proper earlier than midnight on 21 November, 1000’s of employees – lots of whom had been asleep – obtained a textual content message from United Furnishings Industries (UFI) saying that they had been terminated successfully and had been now not allowed to return to work.

“On the instruction of the board of administrators … we remorse to tell you that on account of unexpected enterprise circumstances, the corporate has been compelled to make the troublesome resolution to terminate the employment of all its staff, efficient instantly,” the message, which the New York Submit reviewed, mentioned.

“Your layoff from the corporate is predicted to be everlasting and all advantages might be terminated instantly with out provision of Cobra,” a follow-up e-mail from the corporate learn, referring to a federal regulation that provides staff who lose their jobs the choice to maintain their employer-sponsored medical health insurance beneath sure circumstances.

The corporate additionally instructed its drivers to right away “return tools, stock and supply paperwork”, no matter “whether or not or not [they] have accomplished [their] supply”.

Staff got no rationalization for why they had been terminated so abruptly. On Tuesday, UFI despatched out an replace concerning the retrieval of their belongings, which FreightWaves reviewed.

“As quickly because the property supervisor can present a protected and orderly course of for former staff to return and collect their belongings, they may accomplish that … We’re not sure of the timeframe for this however will talk proactively,” the e-mail mentioned.

In response, quite a few staff expressed shock and frustration at their abrupt firing.

One worker advised FreightWaves: “It’s not honest to the laborers who significantly labored so exhausting to be blindsided like this. It’s not honest to the mother who simply had a child to marvel if she even has medical health insurance to cowl it. It’s not honest to the most cancers affected person within the midst of chemo about learn how to pay for her remedies.”

One other worker, TJ Martin, advised WLBT: “This has been a drastic shock to each considered one of us … That places a damper on all people’s spirits, particularly while you’re advised to be able to hit it exhausting Monday. Each considered one of us is devoted to the corporate. We think about one another to be members of the family.”

On Wednesday, former worker Toria Neal filed a lawsuit in opposition to the corporate, alleging that it violated the federal Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act by not offering a minimum of 60 days discover of its shutdown.