Shouldn’t Employers Feel Some of the Sting

The bill is a response to a series of bankruptcies among major employers in the state over the past two years. iphone xr hoesje When Toys “R” mont blanc bracelet homme Us went bankrupt in 2017, the company had 1,500 employees in New Jersey. coque iphone 5 At first, it announced that it would let them go without any severance pay at all. coque huawei Without this new law in place, it was perfectly bracelet homme fait main legal to refuse to give longtime workers any financial cushion in bague or homme femme the wake of sudden job loss. So employees came together, with the bracelet homme en bois help of the worker organizing nonprofit United for Respect (at the time called Rise Up mauboussin bracelet homme Retail), to demand payment for their years of work at the toy retailer. They eventually secured a $20 million hardship fund from the company’s private equity owners, KKR and Bain, although it was a good deal less than the $75 million they had originally demanded. coque iphone 8 pas cher iphone 11 pro max hoesje When Sears went bankrupt in 2018, its management similarly told employees they bracelet homme perle de tahiti wouldn’t get severance pay, either. Workers pressured Eddie Lampert, whose hedge fund, ESL Investments Inc., bague or un monde en or bought the company in 2005, to agree to pay them up to $43 million, although he later tried to back out of the deal during the bankruptcy process.

It was in the wake of those liquidations, at a rally of laid off Toys “R” Us employees, that New Jersey State Senator Joseph Cryan got “engaged on the issue,” he said. bijoux pas cher coque iphone 6 He starting working on the legislation, supported by Toys “R” Us and Sears workers. coque huawei coque iphone 6 pas cher “Candidly, I’m just tired of the little guy getting screwed,” Cryan said.

The law will cover more than retail workers, applying to all businesses with 50 or more employees who lay off at least 50 people. And by doing so, it seeks to make the front line employees who create products and generate companies’ profits less disposable. As Eileen bracelet homme en corde Appelbaum, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told me last April, it is currently “virtually costless” to fire employees as bague or blanc 18 carats diamant prix part of a bankruptcy process or when bague or jaune tiffany a financial bracelet homme bois company like a private equity firm buys a company and wants to boost profits. coque iphone coque samsung “Squeezing labor is the fastest way to increase cash flow,” she explained.

But New Jersey’s new law could “cause companies to think twice about whether laying off workers is their go to solution for every problem that they face,” she said. Firing people would actually come with a cost. iphone case That could tip the scales in favor of keeping stores and factories open and people employed.

Beth Hink experienced firsthand how the current calculus works. Despite nearly two decades of work with Payless ShoeSource, Hink found out that she’d be losing her job through the press. Last February, she read that the company was going bankrupt and closing all of its stores.

As a multi store leader in New Jersey at the time, running two locations, that meant she had to be the one to inform coworkers that they would also be losing their jobs. bijoux pas cher “It was etsy bracelet homme kind of awful,” she recalled. “That was a phone call that I don’t want anybody to have to make to their employees.”At first, the company promised workers would be getting severance pay bracelet homme cuir large to see them through the rough patch between jobs. But employees quickly realized that the $1.3 million it owed in severance pay was not bracelet homme menotte secured from the bankruptcy process. The employees were left to file their own claims to try to squeeze as much compensation out of the process as they could, going head to head with creditors also bracelet homme amour seeking payment, who get preference over worker compensation in bankruptcy court. cover iphone 7 plus “The whole process has just been extremely stressful,” Hink said. cover iphone 8 She and her coworkers even teamed up to help each other fill out and send in the necessary paperwork. Some of them postmarked it by the correct date, but because the forms were received late, they won’t bracelet homme femme amour get bracelet homme infini anything.

“There really isn’t any recourse for us as Payless employees,” Hink said. She and her coworkers received three gravure bracelet homme days’ worth of severance pay in the immediate aftermath of the store closings, but that’s it, so far. coque samsung iphone x xs hoesje Whether they will get more depends on what happens in bankruptcy. “We don’t know yet whether or not we’re going to receive any,” she said. While she waits and looks for a new job, Hink has had to cash out her 401(k). “I’m living bracelet homme acier et or on my savings and trying to make every dollar stretch.” And if they do get pay, it’s likely to be far less than they say they are owed, discounted by a bankruptcy judge.

“I didn’t think there was anything we could do about it,” she said. But then she found out there was something she could do not just for fellow retail workers but for every employee in New Jersey. Hink testified in favor of the guaranteed severance pay bill in the New Jersey assembly and watched “like a kid in the candy store” bague or quebec as legislators voted in favor of the measure.

“Finally, workers are added to the bottom line equation when corporations look at future business,” Cryan said. “Workers’ performance and workers’ dedication to the company were secondary,” he added. coque huawei “Now hopefully with this bill they’ll be moved more to the forefront.”

Severance also offers “security” and “protection” for workers, Hink explained. coque iphone coque iphone coque iphone 7 It gives them “a little space to breathe and figure out what your next move is going to be.” And the bill will help part time employees, who are often left out of severance payments, no matter how long their tenure at a company. “The idea that their work doesn’t matter seems degrading to me,” Cryan said. “It’ll be part of the equation now.”

The bill has other provisions meant to ensure more financial stability when companies fail: more notice for employees ahead of layoffs, job protection for a certain period of time after a bankruptcy or change of ownership, and the classification of severance payments as compensation, giving it preference in the bankruptcy bracelet homme amazone process alongside creditor claims so that workers are more likely to actually receive payment. coque samsung It will bracelet homme cuir diesel also hold financial owners such as KKR or Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund, which owns Sears, responsible for paying severance claims as joint employers.

The bill, if signed into law, won’t secure justice for Beth Hink and her coworkers. “This bill doesn’t go bracelet homme argent a graver back and fix the wrongs,” she noted. They still have to fight for compensation in court. coque samsung “But what it does is fix the wrongs that could happen for comment nettoyer bague or diamant other people.” She said that after the Assembly vote on Monday, she called her son, who works at a grocery store in the state, and told him, “Hey, guess what, you’re going to be protected in case your company closes and you get laid off.”

“That was awesome,” she added.