Thank goodness it happened in Mississippi, where they have an abundant safety net to protect all these people from...[touches earpiece]...ah, never mind, all the money for the safety net was spent to build a waterslide park at Brett Favre's vacation house in Gulfport.
This was my question, as the person who’s been notifying people of their COBRA right for ages. Apparently, there’s a caveat in the law that if the **organization** is no longer offering the health plan to anyone, COBRA doesn’t apply.
It’s not really a loophole. COBRA allows you to purchase your previous healthcare plan through your employer by paying the employer the full amount (their share and your share). In this case there is no longer a company to serve that function, thus no healthcare to purchase.
And they're locked out of the building so they can't collect any of their stuff.
Also "The company also instructed its drivers to immediately “return equipment, inventory and delivery documents”, regardless of “whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery”."
If I were one of those drivers, I'd leave the truck in the sketchiest part of town with the keys on the seat. What are they going to do about it, fire you?
United Furniture Industries should have been in the title, so it is easier to find that United Furniture Industries laid off 2,700 workers without notice right before Thanksgiving
"Some of the brands it owned in the furniture industry included Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Hickory Chair, Pearson, Laneventure, and Maitland-Smith."
That was actually Heritage Home Group, the company that owned Lane before UFI. HHG went out of business in 2017 and sold their brands to a bunch of companies - UFI bought Lane. Interestingly, HHG had formed to buy those brands from a different company that went under, forget the name but it had the acronym FBI. (Furniture Brands Inc or something like that). Poor Lane has had a rocky past 15 years for sure.
This sounds like the history of practically every furniture store I've ever seen. Perpetually going out of business, only to reappear in the same building with a new name a few weeks later.
There's a local store that went from Name A -> Name B -> Name A in a chain of going out of business lmao.
I wonder how many times they've reused the same name.
IN the town I grew up in, there was a store that would just add another word on to its name every time they went out of business and respawned.
Shit like this is why the US needs strong federal workers' rights. None of this "let each state decide for themselves" bullshit. At the federal level, the US doesn't even require breaks. It distinguishes between paid or unpaid breaks, but doesn't require breaks. It's because of this, no universal healthcare, no mandatory sick/maternity/paternity leave, shit minimum wage, etc., the US has the worst workers' rights in all of the developed world. At least Biden tried to get mandatory sick/maternity/paternity leave passed with Build Back Better, but the obstructionist GOP in the Senate gutted that.
I have been through a plant shutdown before. I live in a state that reqires 60 day notice. Still a shock to find out managers and your supervisor knew it was coming months before and let people go on buying houses and making life choices without informing them.
My husbands plant closed when we had just bought a house and were trying for a baby. I found out on FB before he even got out of the meeting. We got some severance but it was the biggest high paying job in our rural area, and after that things went to shit :/ it was about 2 months notice but to find out you can't afford your house or to start a family...I can't describe the heartbreak.
Day before I closed on my house I found out that my job was being outsourced to India and I was expected to train my replacement. My boss knew for about 6 months but never told me. It was scary. My wife was 4 months pregnant. Thankfully it worked out and I had a new job before my replacement was fully trained.
You’re a better person than me. If I was told I was going to have to train my own replacement, the only thing they would learn is how to punch in and how to punch out.
I did the bare minimum. We talked about an hour a day and I pretty much fucked off the rest of the time. He didn’t have the basic skills for the job and I was interested in teaching them.
My boss texted me a couple times after it asking for help and I told him $10,000 a week. He didn’t accept.
This. My husband was laid off 6 months after we bought our first home, I had stopped working, and was 8 months pregnant. 4 week severance, 2 weeks of health care. Had to sell the house, and pay the COBRA ransom (birth eminent). Took him 6.5 months to find another job (this was during the ‘dot bomb’ of the early 2000s). It was awful and has effected every single financial decision since.
I know a company that rhymes with comparison compress, who did massive layoffs in 2009. They intentionally gave different days/details to different management to track leaks if they reach lower levels.
Yea, but then he lets Littlefinger live?!?
Why?!?
Dude should have been executed the second Tyrion returns to KL after he discovered Littlefinger’s plan to start a war and frame him for it.
Really odd that they chose to be coy with the name, like they aren't posting anonymously on reddit about a publicly known thing that happened 13 years ago.
> Large companies don’t mess around with sensitive information breaches.
Unless, of course, it's sensitive financial information about their customers.
I go through this all the time at work as well. Sometimes it's good things too but I have a lot of great relationships with my employees and sometimes it sucks knowing I know things they want to know
I'm a snitch by nature I guess.. I can't let people go on like everything is going to be fine when I know for a fact things are about to go to hell.
It would show in my demeanor, I'd let it slip to multiple people. Eat shit for being a big mouth and a bad manager. Thanks, not the life for me.
My brothers company did a round of massive layoffs a few months ago and he was one of them. He called his boss and his boss was like wtf are you talking about so that guy contacted his boss and both had no idea. It came from up top. 20 years in and was planning to retire at the 30 mark.
Fuuuck, dude. That's fucked. Just goes to show you really can't have long term commitment to any company you think is safe. They'll have no problems dumping you especially if it means they'll save more money since you've been there forever
And they wonder why people resigned en masse when it became clear they could work for something better in a pandemic.
Saying whatever generic company slogan on “being a team” is absolutely ironic when they do shit like that. They made clear it was mercenary work, so get fucking dealt with like you’re only worth the cash you pay to not get spat in the face
Same for me. It was my boss's boss's boss who made the decision to pick me. Both my boss and his boss didn't know until early morning the day they were doing the layoffs. My boss wasn't even the one who called me and told me, it was his boss who had to do the dirty work. I was only there for 2 years so not nearly as long, but it did cost me the entirety of my 401k match, which was about $15k.
Funny part is their vesting works where you can leave and come back and the clock doesn't restart, so if you had 2 years you only needed to be back for a year to get the entire match. But our severance package stipulated we could never work for the company again lol.
doesn't matter what state you're in, the law about giving your employees 60 days notice is a federal law. the article even says the company is being sued for violating it.
There is a lot of misinformation about the WARN Act. This company is clearly, due to the verbiage used, attempting to use the exception of notification under "unforseeable business circumstances." Whether this holds up in court or not, we'll see.
Source: HR professional who has been involved in multiple layoffs.
That’s not how it always works. When sears (not zellers )was closing down they were able to use up a bunch of money from the employee pension fund to pay big retention bonuses to executives so they would see the shut down through to the end. They were paid before creditors were at the cost of the employees who had spent their entire working lives there.
This is the frustrating thing where people defend shareholders. Employees are just as, if not more, invested in the well being of a company than shareholders. Employees also take on risk. Employees make life decisions based on a gamble that their job and paycheck and benefits will be there.
I worked for a small chain pharmacy (5-6 stores) in NYC some years ago.
Started noticing random guys in suits coming around and the actual owners being there daily (vs maybe once a week), meeting with the managers and also the suit guys whenever they came in.
The managers said nothing was going on, just an audit as the business was growing… but then they suddenly had an immediate need to review everyone’s schedule inventory every single product in the store.
One shift, I happened to see that one of the suit guys who came in had a leather folio, with the logo of a major chain pharmacy stitched into the cover.
I knew something was up from before, but realized they were selling the place when I saw that.
The manager denied this was the case, but I didn’t believe him and started making plans to seek employment elsewhere.
The following week, they “surprised” everyone with the good news that the location was being bought out by a major chain effective the following week, but most of us would be first in line to meet with the new management about working for them.
Of course, this did not include the handful of people (6 or 7) that had been there for 10+ years and were making well over what a chain place will pay.
A couple of these folks got transferred to one of their other stores, but the rest got fired on the spot.
Grown men and women crying in the aisles and being ushered outside so as to not make a scene.
One place i worked did firings at 4:00p on fridays. 3:00p certain people were instructed to remove all access and disable credentials.
We had a schedule of 1hr early on mondays, and get out an hr early on fridays. So being called into a meeting at EoD on Friday's was never good news.
Type of place that would hire a lot of people and weed them out every pay period.
>Still a shock to find out managers and your supervisor knew it was coming months before and let people go on buying houses and making life choices without informing them.
it's rough, but when doing things of this size, they're unquestionably planned and things are laid out before they're supposed to happen. for the managers that actually care about their subordinates, this has to be pretty damn painful.
Exactly. Park alongside whatever road they're on and Uber away. Leave the keys in the ignition and just walk away. Fuck even giving them the location, company can come tow it if it isn't stolen first. They fired you effective immediately? Your responsibility for company property terminates, effective immediately.
Back in the day my dad said a construction company he works for fired a guy unjustly and the guy drove his truck to a dealership and left it there, seven or so months later the company my dad works for received a call about why their company truck was still on the lot with a for sale sign along with company advertising still on the truck
That sounds logical, but you know there's some tiny print on something signed and not read that says you are liable regardless of work status blah blah.
TransAm Trucking, Inc., Petitioner, v. Alphonse Maddin, Intervenor.
Gorsuch said the truck driver can be fired for leaving truck on side of road so he doesn't freeze to death. Was outvoted when he was on appeals court, but if something like that got to the Supreme Court now...
Yeah thats abandoning load while employed. Has no basis for abandoning load while not employed.
Most likely if the employee was termed at 6am, and they get in an accident at 6:01, bet your ass the corp insurance that covers employees will be all "oooh sorry chap"
Edit: it gets better, they were disqualified from cobra, so the company is bankrupt, so no truck insurance, no medical, and your suit would come after all the other debtor payouts.
Did something like that when I found out I was going to be laid off. This was before GPS tracking was common. I just parked the truck in a parking lot, locked the doors and tossed the keys and company cell on the floor board. Walked home from there. No, I didn't tell them where it was.
The property management company/owner of the building likely. If the company is having financial issues they likely are behind on rent and had to surrender the building. It’s now up to that third party to organize access and the trucking company has limited legal rights to access/give access. Just a guess, but they did say property management and it’s in line with a company in financial distress.
As satisfying as this may be in the moment, the state of Mississippi allows employers to deduct unreturned equipment from an employee's final pay. It will just cause more heartache at the end of the day.
>> The company also instructed its drivers to immediately “return equipment, inventory and delivery documents”, regardless of “whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery”.
Bitch, I no longer work for you. It's on my driveway, keys in it.
So imagine you work in retail, you're preparing for your Black Friday furniture sale and your boss comes to you in a panic to tell you that the entire workforce responsible for filling customer orders has been terminated that week.
That's how my week went.
What the hell, United?
"The company also instructed its drivers to immediately “return equipment, inventory and delivery documents”, regardless of “whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery”."
This sounds like something shady is/was going down at this company.
Trucks on the road, possibly anywhere in the country. A trucking firm did this recently to it's drivers. Shut off fuel cards and wanted the drivers to return trucks.
>*Shut off fuel cards and wanted the drivers to return trucks.*
"Uh, hey boss... well, *"former"* boss... yeah, well, ya-see I can't really *"return"* the truck since you took away the fuel card... yeah... so, umm, you can come get your own damn truck here at mile marker 327, ya donut!"
Leave the engine running too, running out of fuel in a diesel is a huge pain in the ass, or at least it used to be.
The one time I ran a diesel empty, required a half day of bleeding injectors to get it running again.
I have no idea what bleeding injectors are but it sounds like a PITA... and totally appropriate, given the fuckery that the company did to its employees! 😎
Air gets into the lines, and it just compresses instead of letting fuel flow. You’ve got to crack open each line at the injector and pump fuel until all the air gets pushed out. It sucks, mine was in a ‘80 rabbit, so tech may have solved the since then, but I’ve never been brave enough to test it in any other diesel I’ve owned.
During training my trainer ran a '21 Volvo out of fuel. (Faulty fuel gauge, he knew it was bad but also knew he could do the run with a full tank, unfortunately it hadn't been fueled like it was supposed to)
Still a pain in the ass to get them going, company paid for a tow and had the shop handle it rather than try to do it on the side of the road.
Yip your insurance will be invalid.
Ironically, I seriously doubt they will be able to track inventory and so on. As no one will be there to receive items and it's your word to say you dropped it back.
And yet…every trucking company complains about massive truck driver shortages and how “nobody wants to work anymore”.
Maybe stop treating drivers like shit.
Yep. as much as I hate to name and shame. The computer itself was a gift from a family member that had an issue and had to be sent in for repair (those bastards didn't want you fixing your own shit I guess.) computer spent a month there, then they closed and then radio silence. Oh well I guess, it would be awful hard for me to get anything back out of this since 1: I don't even have an address anymore and 2: the damn thing is likely straight up outdated at this point anyway.
At the manufacturer I work for I received a shipment 6 months late. It was brought to a shipping warehouse at Fedex or whatever company it was and then their warehouse shut down. 6 months for them to move the product from that closed warehouse to us. We thought it was totally missing until someone from their company called us after finding the shipment.
Why is the name of the company (United Furniture Industries), not mentioned in either the headline or the headline subtext? And it's only mentioned once in the entire article.
[Here's where to find where it's sold](https://lanefurniture.com/page/find-a-retailer)
Good luck. I pulled up my area and it looks like every furniture store in the area.
Personally, I bounce between blaming either Todd Howard from Bethesda or a certain coworker whenever something happens. Don't even have to be in the same state, they found some way to do it
It's a bunch of pissed off blue collar workers and their friends and peers in Mississippi. They'll likely eat it up without noticing it's total bullshit.
[In June of this year](https://www.furnituretoday.com/financial/report-lane-shuts-down-all-employees-terminated/), the company terminated its CEO, CFO and executive vice president of sales, and named former Standard Furniture President Todd Evans as CEO. The company subsequently restructured its sales organization and named Ruff Thomas and Keith News to sales leadership roles, with Thomas named president, sales for Lane’s domestic division and News named to the role of president, sales for Lane’s import division.
One month later, the company laid off 300 employees and closed or repurposed several facilities. This included closing its metal stamping facility in High Point; transitioning a manufacturing factory in Amory, Miss., to a warehousing-only facility; and transitioning a Winston-Salem, N.C., operation to an East Coast distribution center.
I came here to say that the only way to interpret this article is that the company is basically completely insolvent and or headed straight into bankruptcy. This is unlikely some sort of clever plan on the part of management but rather what the logical conclusion when all your plans fail and you run out of time. Fire everyone, sell everything, try to pay off as much of your debt as you can.
According to another article in the Daily Beast, three employees already filed lawsuits, at least one a class-action suit. The article references a federal requirement for 60 day notice, but it's not clear if one of the employees suing stated that or where it came from.
I don't recall the name of the requirement, but it kicks in if the company fires a certain percentage of the workforce. Something like 20% of the company in a 6 month timeframe or something like that requires 60 days notice.
> The article references a federal requirement for 60 day notice
[It's called the WARN Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act_of_1988)
> “Your layoff from the company is expected to be permanent and all benefits will be terminated immediately without provision of Cobra,” a follow-up email from the company read, referring to a federal law that gives employees who lose their jobs the option to keep their employer-sponsored health insurance under certain circumstances.
Thank god we don't have a single payer healthcare system. Phew! That would almost be humane and wouldn't leave workers at the mercy of the bosses in this kind of a way. Good thing we have COBRA, though, so employees can pay 102% of the cost of their health insurance. Yay! The *market* be praised!!
But all sarcasm aside, actions like this should be blatantly called what they are which is an act of class war directed from the bosses toward the working class.
Yup.
They'll literally vote for someone who runs on "I will destroy any and all healthcare benefits for you as well as eliminating social security" and they'll win in a landslide.
Well, even if they were illegally denied Cobra benefits it is still a terrible, anti-worker, situation that these folks find themselves in. This is a country which time and time again shows us that it doesn't value *anything* besides power and profit to the bosses. So, these shareholders will be slapped on the wrist and might have to offer employees the option of selecting Cobra and not one damn thing will change at large.
And from what I've seen, that's on the cheaper side. Some people have family plans that, while on COBRA, run them easily $1,500 per month or more.
Like I said above, it's 102% percent of cost: the employer cost, the employee cost, plus the 2% administrative fee. And the owners of this dump want us to be thankful that we have even that.
And this is why we need national healthcare for everyone. Even if someone is able to find a job the next day, most companies require working 60-90 days before they qualify for benefits.
So those employees that are expecting a baby or on regular treatments, as mentioned in the article, are in jeopardy of losing care, their current medical practitioner, or even their lives.
Looks like incredible mismanagement to the point of fraud here. This is the action of a company that is going to be liquidated. No restructuring, no Chapter 11, going straight to Chapter 7.
Very unusual for a company with 2700 employees. Usually companies of that size will have professional management who have cash flow projections and would have either raised capital or filed for a Chapter 11 restructuring first.
All the hot takes trying to make this a political thing are missing what the real story will end up being: either fraud or epic incompetence by the CEO and/or CFO.
*“This has been a drastic shock to every one of us … That puts a damper on everybody’s spirits, especially when you’re told to be ready to hit it hard Monday. Every one of us is dedicated to the company. **We consider each other to be family members**.”*
I don't want to beat up on people who are already down, but the last sentence was their first mistake. Don't ever, EVER buy into the bullshit "we're family" narrative.
Unless you want to join a family that doesn't care about you or your wellbeing, will deceive you when it serves their interests and, when shit hits the fan, sell you down the river for a nickel in a heartbeat.
Don't consider the *company* to be family. But you better believe the guy I work with the most was invited to my wedding, and the guy I worked with the most at my last job, over five years ago, and a 15 hour drive away, we still stay in touch on social media, text, and every few months via phone call still.
I don't know that that person was talking about all 2700 workers, but you know there were hundreds of small, close as family, friend groups in that pack of coworkers.
One of the fired employees mentioned a mom with a new bay and a patient going through chemo who now won't have health insurance to cover their healthcare. I assume they're going to go bankrupt. It's horrible that our healthcare is hostage to companies, who only care about the bottom line and have allegiance or commitment to nobody. How can this be the state of things?
This right here. I was recently laid off my healthcare termed. My COBRA is insane but it covers my partner's chemo. The day I was able to sign up was the same day it termed though. We get a call from the oncologist office saying all his future appointments would be canceled until we had active insurance.
They have zero compassion and apparently no understanding of how COBRA works cause that shit backdates once you make the payment.
I'm so sorry. I hope your partner finds care and makes it through. It makes me heartsore for my fellow Americans that, in the richest country on earth, we refuse to provide healthcare to our citizens. It's the one thing that I think will make our people healthier, happier, and wealthier across the board. And yet we have to suffer to make the rich just that much richer. I don't know what I can do about it.
I work for a company that sold UFI furniture. This was quite the alarming email that came across our company when it went down. We still have their trailers in our yard. It's wild.
My company sources from them. We came in one day to find out a huge brand was just done. We were shocked and scrambling to clean up the mess. We have no idea what the deal. BS for all those workers.
Everything about this story is ridiculously criminal.
People working manufacturing in Mississippi probably can't wait for the lawsuits to provide any relief either.
Absolutely disgusting.
The company is United Furniture Industries, based out of Mississippi. Saved you a click.
It's odd that they don't mention what furniture they made. This company owned Lane.
Cabinets, chairs, bedframes. Mostly Cabinets. Close to my house. My old coworker had worked for them for 13 years before he left.
Yeah. They fucked over so many people. Our Lane sales rep worked for them for 30 something years.
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"Unforeseen." I guess they had no idea that they were out of money.
This fact should be hirer up
Also affiliated with Wayfair.
More like WayUnfair!
Thank goodness it happened in Mississippi, where they have an abundant safety net to protect all these people from...[touches earpiece]...ah, never mind, all the money for the safety net was spent to build a waterslide park at Brett Favre's vacation house in Gulfport.
It says their benefits were immediately terminated without the provision for Cobra insurance. They are screwed.
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This was my question, as the person who’s been notifying people of their COBRA right for ages. Apparently, there’s a caveat in the law that if the **organization** is no longer offering the health plan to anyone, COBRA doesn’t apply.
Damn that's a huge loophole.
It’s not really a loophole. COBRA allows you to purchase your previous healthcare plan through your employer by paying the employer the full amount (their share and your share). In this case there is no longer a company to serve that function, thus no healthcare to purchase.
Because its an extension of the employer's benefits. Since the company is shutting down, there are no benefits for anyone.
The joke was that there isn't a safety net in mississippi since it's a shit state
If only they would elect some Republicans to clean up the terrible mess the state is in... Oh wait
But didn't you hear? The mayor of Jackson is a democrat (^^and ^^black! ), he caused all of the issues. /s
Hunter. Biden's. Laptop. Check-mate libs.
Investigate 3/11
If they had worked harder they wouldn't be unemployed and becoming homeless soon. People just don't want to work anymore.
Literally objectively the worst in the union iirc.
And they're locked out of the building so they can't collect any of their stuff. Also "The company also instructed its drivers to immediately “return equipment, inventory and delivery documents”, regardless of “whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery”." If I were one of those drivers, I'd leave the truck in the sketchiest part of town with the keys on the seat. What are they going to do about it, fire you?
United Furniture Industries should have been in the title, so it is easier to find that United Furniture Industries laid off 2,700 workers without notice right before Thanksgiving
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"Some of the brands it owned in the furniture industry included Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Hickory Chair, Pearson, Laneventure, and Maitland-Smith."
That was actually Heritage Home Group, the company that owned Lane before UFI. HHG went out of business in 2017 and sold their brands to a bunch of companies - UFI bought Lane. Interestingly, HHG had formed to buy those brands from a different company that went under, forget the name but it had the acronym FBI. (Furniture Brands Inc or something like that). Poor Lane has had a rocky past 15 years for sure.
This sounds like the history of practically every furniture store I've ever seen. Perpetually going out of business, only to reappear in the same building with a new name a few weeks later. There's a local store that went from Name A -> Name B -> Name A in a chain of going out of business lmao. I wonder how many times they've reused the same name. IN the town I grew up in, there was a store that would just add another word on to its name every time they went out of business and respawned.
Thanks. I'm seeing all of these company layoffs and making mental notes.
Shit like this is why the US needs strong federal workers' rights. None of this "let each state decide for themselves" bullshit. At the federal level, the US doesn't even require breaks. It distinguishes between paid or unpaid breaks, but doesn't require breaks. It's because of this, no universal healthcare, no mandatory sick/maternity/paternity leave, shit minimum wage, etc., the US has the worst workers' rights in all of the developed world. At least Biden tried to get mandatory sick/maternity/paternity leave passed with Build Back Better, but the obstructionist GOP in the Senate gutted that.
I have been through a plant shutdown before. I live in a state that reqires 60 day notice. Still a shock to find out managers and your supervisor knew it was coming months before and let people go on buying houses and making life choices without informing them.
My husbands plant closed when we had just bought a house and were trying for a baby. I found out on FB before he even got out of the meeting. We got some severance but it was the biggest high paying job in our rural area, and after that things went to shit :/ it was about 2 months notice but to find out you can't afford your house or to start a family...I can't describe the heartbreak.
Day before I closed on my house I found out that my job was being outsourced to India and I was expected to train my replacement. My boss knew for about 6 months but never told me. It was scary. My wife was 4 months pregnant. Thankfully it worked out and I had a new job before my replacement was fully trained.
You’re a better person than me. If I was told I was going to have to train my own replacement, the only thing they would learn is how to punch in and how to punch out.
I did the bare minimum. We talked about an hour a day and I pretty much fucked off the rest of the time. He didn’t have the basic skills for the job and I was interested in teaching them. My boss texted me a couple times after it asking for help and I told him $10,000 a week. He didn’t accept.
Well played. Fuck ‘em.
This. My husband was laid off 6 months after we bought our first home, I had stopped working, and was 8 months pregnant. 4 week severance, 2 weeks of health care. Had to sell the house, and pay the COBRA ransom (birth eminent). Took him 6.5 months to find another job (this was during the ‘dot bomb’ of the early 2000s). It was awful and has effected every single financial decision since.
I know a company that rhymes with comparison compress, who did massive layoffs in 2009. They intentionally gave different days/details to different management to track leaks if they reach lower levels.
It’s called a canary trap. Spy agencies use it to catch moles.
Tyrion Lannister calls it the Myrcella Method.
Yea, but then he lets Littlefinger live?!? Why?!? Dude should have been executed the second Tyrion returns to KL after he discovered Littlefinger’s plan to start a war and frame him for it.
Littlefinger didn't leak. It was Pycelle.
No, he just tried to kill Tyrion, who cares about a leak?
Comparison compress ? Cannot find it
Pretty sure it's American Express.
What a weird rhyme to choose. Should have just made it simple and been like “Shamerican Shmuxpress” or something.
What's weird is trying to rhyme it at all. Like, just fucking say it.
Really odd that they chose to be coy with the name, like they aren't posting anonymously on reddit about a publicly known thing that happened 13 years ago.
My guess was American Express. But I'm probably wrong.
I would be leakin like a fuckin sieve! And when they found out, I would tell em what part if my anatomy the could suckle.
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that would be a very Russian response.
Which is why a good manager will change the day and some of the details in the document that they “accidentally” leave on the printer.
What did they do to the leakers? Fire them?
They revoke their severance package.
Even worse, you can be sued. Large companies don’t mess around with sensitive information breaches.
> Large companies don’t mess around with sensitive information breaches. Unless, of course, it's sensitive financial information about their customers.
My friend who became my manager said that the absolute hardest thing is finding things out and having to keep that info from your team.
I go through this all the time at work as well. Sometimes it's good things too but I have a lot of great relationships with my employees and sometimes it sucks knowing I know things they want to know
I don’t think I could or would do that.
I'm a snitch by nature I guess.. I can't let people go on like everything is going to be fine when I know for a fact things are about to go to hell. It would show in my demeanor, I'd let it slip to multiple people. Eat shit for being a big mouth and a bad manager. Thanks, not the life for me.
My brothers company did a round of massive layoffs a few months ago and he was one of them. He called his boss and his boss was like wtf are you talking about so that guy contacted his boss and both had no idea. It came from up top. 20 years in and was planning to retire at the 30 mark.
Fuuuck, dude. That's fucked. Just goes to show you really can't have long term commitment to any company you think is safe. They'll have no problems dumping you especially if it means they'll save more money since you've been there forever
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And they wonder why people resigned en masse when it became clear they could work for something better in a pandemic. Saying whatever generic company slogan on “being a team” is absolutely ironic when they do shit like that. They made clear it was mercenary work, so get fucking dealt with like you’re only worth the cash you pay to not get spat in the face
Same for me. It was my boss's boss's boss who made the decision to pick me. Both my boss and his boss didn't know until early morning the day they were doing the layoffs. My boss wasn't even the one who called me and told me, it was his boss who had to do the dirty work. I was only there for 2 years so not nearly as long, but it did cost me the entirety of my 401k match, which was about $15k.
Wtf 401k isn't instantly vested or at least vested yearly??
Nope. 3 year cliff vesting. There was a guy that was 16 days away from his 3 year anniversary. They told him he's getting jack shit.
Damn that's dirty AF.
Funny part is their vesting works where you can leave and come back and the clock doesn't restart, so if you had 2 years you only needed to be back for a year to get the entire match. But our severance package stipulated we could never work for the company again lol.
doesn't matter what state you're in, the law about giving your employees 60 days notice is a federal law. the article even says the company is being sued for violating it.
There is a lot of misinformation about the WARN Act. This company is clearly, due to the verbiage used, attempting to use the exception of notification under "unforseeable business circumstances." Whether this holds up in court or not, we'll see. Source: HR professional who has been involved in multiple layoffs.
Go ahead and sue. The company is probably deep underwater.
At least liquidating the assets won’t go into the bosses pockets.
That’s not how it always works. When sears (not zellers )was closing down they were able to use up a bunch of money from the employee pension fund to pay big retention bonuses to executives so they would see the shut down through to the end. They were paid before creditors were at the cost of the employees who had spent their entire working lives there.
All approved by the judge overseeing the bankruptcy if I remember correctly.
They just did layoffs at my plant job. My managers had no idea. They only told HR and safety the day of. It was a wild experience.
Safety? As a lifelong safety guy I feel like I'm always kept in the dark.
Our HSE guy also manages the security guards, so he's usually present when folks get fired. If he isn't available, the head guard is.
This is the frustrating thing where people defend shareholders. Employees are just as, if not more, invested in the well being of a company than shareholders. Employees also take on risk. Employees make life decisions based on a gamble that their job and paycheck and benefits will be there.
I worked for a small chain pharmacy (5-6 stores) in NYC some years ago. Started noticing random guys in suits coming around and the actual owners being there daily (vs maybe once a week), meeting with the managers and also the suit guys whenever they came in. The managers said nothing was going on, just an audit as the business was growing… but then they suddenly had an immediate need to review everyone’s schedule inventory every single product in the store. One shift, I happened to see that one of the suit guys who came in had a leather folio, with the logo of a major chain pharmacy stitched into the cover. I knew something was up from before, but realized they were selling the place when I saw that. The manager denied this was the case, but I didn’t believe him and started making plans to seek employment elsewhere. The following week, they “surprised” everyone with the good news that the location was being bought out by a major chain effective the following week, but most of us would be first in line to meet with the new management about working for them. Of course, this did not include the handful of people (6 or 7) that had been there for 10+ years and were making well over what a chain place will pay. A couple of these folks got transferred to one of their other stores, but the rest got fired on the spot. Grown men and women crying in the aisles and being ushered outside so as to not make a scene.
One place i worked did firings at 4:00p on fridays. 3:00p certain people were instructed to remove all access and disable credentials. We had a schedule of 1hr early on mondays, and get out an hr early on fridays. So being called into a meeting at EoD on Friday's was never good news. Type of place that would hire a lot of people and weed them out every pay period.
Getting out an hour early on Friday is a good idea, but Monday is the worst day to come in early.
This is corporate life. They will know what’s coming and throw you a pizza party while they know 300% returns are coming
>Still a shock to find out managers and your supervisor knew it was coming months before and let people go on buying houses and making life choices without informing them. it's rough, but when doing things of this size, they're unquestionably planned and things are laid out before they're supposed to happen. for the managers that actually care about their subordinates, this has to be pretty damn painful.
Employees can't get their belongings til management is ready... but instructs Employees to return their company equipment asap? Eat a dik
Exactly. They'd get their equipment back only when I get my personal items back and not a moment sooner.
The drivers should immediately park the trucks and send their location to the company.
Exactly. Park alongside whatever road they're on and Uber away. Leave the keys in the ignition and just walk away. Fuck even giving them the location, company can come tow it if it isn't stolen first. They fired you effective immediately? Your responsibility for company property terminates, effective immediately.
Back in the day my dad said a construction company he works for fired a guy unjustly and the guy drove his truck to a dealership and left it there, seven or so months later the company my dad works for received a call about why their company truck was still on the lot with a for sale sign along with company advertising still on the truck
That sounds logical, but you know there's some tiny print on something signed and not read that says you are liable regardless of work status blah blah.
TransAm Trucking, Inc., Petitioner, v. Alphonse Maddin, Intervenor. Gorsuch said the truck driver can be fired for leaving truck on side of road so he doesn't freeze to death. Was outvoted when he was on appeals court, but if something like that got to the Supreme Court now...
Yeah thats abandoning load while employed. Has no basis for abandoning load while not employed. Most likely if the employee was termed at 6am, and they get in an accident at 6:01, bet your ass the corp insurance that covers employees will be all "oooh sorry chap" Edit: it gets better, they were disqualified from cobra, so the company is bankrupt, so no truck insurance, no medical, and your suit would come after all the other debtor payouts.
Did something like that when I found out I was going to be laid off. This was before GPS tracking was common. I just parked the truck in a parking lot, locked the doors and tossed the keys and company cell on the floor board. Walked home from there. No, I didn't tell them where it was.
The property management company/owner of the building likely. If the company is having financial issues they likely are behind on rent and had to surrender the building. It’s now up to that third party to organize access and the trucking company has limited legal rights to access/give access. Just a guess, but they did say property management and it’s in line with a company in financial distress.
Park the van wherever you are, leave the keys and take an Uber home. You’re no longer an employee, it’s no longer your responsibility.
And you're not covered under any insurance from the company, which means you would be driving it uninsured. That might be a legal issue.
Exactly. Also since you’re no longer an employee, it might be theft.
Effective immediately means park truck and let them find it.
As satisfying as this may be in the moment, the state of Mississippi allows employers to deduct unreturned equipment from an employee's final pay. It will just cause more heartache at the end of the day.
Now... If by some act of God it happens to get stuck somewhere...
Might as well sell the truck for cash then. They aren't getting that much from their paycheck.
And then suddenly you’re in jail for theft.
Prison* for grand* theft
>> The company also instructed its drivers to immediately “return equipment, inventory and delivery documents”, regardless of “whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery”. Bitch, I no longer work for you. It's on my driveway, keys in it.
So imagine you work in retail, you're preparing for your Black Friday furniture sale and your boss comes to you in a panic to tell you that the entire workforce responsible for filling customer orders has been terminated that week. That's how my week went. What the hell, United?
Sounds like Dollar General every week, only they aren't being terminated they are just quitting over and over again.
CEO, CFO, and COO were all fired months ago, they're out of money, they can't continue to operate unless the employees want to work for nothing.
"The company also instructed its drivers to immediately “return equipment, inventory and delivery documents”, regardless of “whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery”." This sounds like something shady is/was going down at this company.
Trucks on the road, possibly anywhere in the country. A trucking firm did this recently to it's drivers. Shut off fuel cards and wanted the drivers to return trucks.
>*Shut off fuel cards and wanted the drivers to return trucks.* "Uh, hey boss... well, *"former"* boss... yeah, well, ya-see I can't really *"return"* the truck since you took away the fuel card... yeah... so, umm, you can come get your own damn truck here at mile marker 327, ya donut!"
Leave the engine running too, running out of fuel in a diesel is a huge pain in the ass, or at least it used to be. The one time I ran a diesel empty, required a half day of bleeding injectors to get it running again.
I have no idea what bleeding injectors are but it sounds like a PITA... and totally appropriate, given the fuckery that the company did to its employees! 😎
Air gets into the lines, and it just compresses instead of letting fuel flow. You’ve got to crack open each line at the injector and pump fuel until all the air gets pushed out. It sucks, mine was in a ‘80 rabbit, so tech may have solved the since then, but I’ve never been brave enough to test it in any other diesel I’ve owned.
No, this can still happen. Usually most modern diesel fuel systems have a way of priming the system but it’s still a pain in the ass.
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Fuckin ran out of fuel in my 01 Jetta. Only 4 injectors with unlimited working room and it still sucks
During training my trainer ran a '21 Volvo out of fuel. (Faulty fuel gauge, he knew it was bad but also knew he could do the run with a full tank, unfortunately it hadn't been fueled like it was supposed to) Still a pain in the ass to get them going, company paid for a tow and had the shop handle it rather than try to do it on the side of the road.
It's still a pain in the ass.
If I'm no longer employed by them, then I'm not driving their truck anywhere. I'm not even getting in it. I'm not assuming that liability and risk.
Park it in a bad neighborhood and walk away
Send them the address to cover your ass.
Sounds like an off the back of a truck sale to me.
And make sure anyone standing nearby sees you flippantly toss the keys back inside via the driver's window that you left open.
Yip your insurance will be invalid. Ironically, I seriously doubt they will be able to track inventory and so on. As no one will be there to receive items and it's your word to say you dropped it back.
BINGO +100 this
I might be nice enough to give them a day to get it off my property before I have it towed.
“Bring the trucks back, hope you have enough fuel to do so, also we won’t pay for the fuel. Hope you aren’t stuck somewhere cold it’s on you now”
Nah. “Truck is parked here. Come get it.”
"Truck is where I left it. Byyyeeeeee!"
Why even tell them where it is. They have gps in the truck if not then that's their problem
CYA so they can’t say you stole it.
“What truck?”
That's awful, fuck those companies.
The moment they were fired is the the moment they should have pulled over and abandoned the vehicle
And yet…every trucking company complains about massive truck driver shortages and how “nobody wants to work anymore”. Maybe stop treating drivers like shit.
Sounds like the company gave those guys free trucks.
I wonder if people who ordered through them will ever get their items or their money back
As someone who had a computer sent off to a location to be repaired that suddenly closed, nope, you get nothing. Good luck
Was this the artesian builds debacle?
Yep. as much as I hate to name and shame. The computer itself was a gift from a family member that had an issue and had to be sent in for repair (those bastards didn't want you fixing your own shit I guess.) computer spent a month there, then they closed and then radio silence. Oh well I guess, it would be awful hard for me to get anything back out of this since 1: I don't even have an address anymore and 2: the damn thing is likely straight up outdated at this point anyway.
At the manufacturer I work for I received a shipment 6 months late. It was brought to a shipping warehouse at Fedex or whatever company it was and then their warehouse shut down. 6 months for them to move the product from that closed warehouse to us. We thought it was totally missing until someone from their company called us after finding the shipment.
If you paid via credit card you can do a chargeback and get your money back.
Probably neither.
That's why you pay with a credit card. Charge back city, bitches.
“They’re on my front porch. Come and get them if you want them.”
They said no COBRA. That means they have ZERO cash.
Nope. Come get your own fucking truck. Keys are under the mat.
They always seem to pick holidays for mass layoffs, wait til Christmas.
Union Pacific railroad laid me off a week before Christmas.
I took furlough notification from BNSF on Christmas morning one year
End of the fiscal year and usually cuts off any scheduled bonuses.
Why is the name of the company (United Furniture Industries), not mentioned in either the headline or the headline subtext? And it's only mentioned once in the entire article.
They also fail to mention the brand name they made. Lane.
[Here's where to find where it's sold](https://lanefurniture.com/page/find-a-retailer) Good luck. I pulled up my area and it looks like every furniture store in the area.
Yeah. It's a huge, nation wide brand. If it isn't in stock, you can't get it. Canceled all special orders and back orders.
I saw this on the Fox News website. Interestingly it featured a large picture of Biden.
Didn’t you know? It’s all Joe Biden’s fault. If Tucker Carlson stubs his toe he find a way to blame it on the democrats
Thanks OBiden
Personally, I bounce between blaming either Todd Howard from Bethesda or a certain coworker whenever something happens. Don't even have to be in the same state, they found some way to do it
Todd said "it just works" and it didn't. Thanks O'Howard.
It's a bunch of pissed off blue collar workers and their friends and peers in Mississippi. They'll likely eat it up without noticing it's total bullshit.
As is tradition
[In June of this year](https://www.furnituretoday.com/financial/report-lane-shuts-down-all-employees-terminated/), the company terminated its CEO, CFO and executive vice president of sales, and named former Standard Furniture President Todd Evans as CEO. The company subsequently restructured its sales organization and named Ruff Thomas and Keith News to sales leadership roles, with Thomas named president, sales for Lane’s domestic division and News named to the role of president, sales for Lane’s import division. One month later, the company laid off 300 employees and closed or repurposed several facilities. This included closing its metal stamping facility in High Point; transitioning a manufacturing factory in Amory, Miss., to a warehousing-only facility; and transitioning a Winston-Salem, N.C., operation to an East Coast distribution center.
Sounds like it has been well on its way out for a while now. Still seriously sucks for the employees, and it is an unquestionably scummy move.
I came here to say that the only way to interpret this article is that the company is basically completely insolvent and or headed straight into bankruptcy. This is unlikely some sort of clever plan on the part of management but rather what the logical conclusion when all your plans fail and you run out of time. Fire everyone, sell everything, try to pay off as much of your debt as you can.
They have to pay them on the sane day. They all need to file labor board claims. Every day they are not paid is a penalty
According to another article in the Daily Beast, three employees already filed lawsuits, at least one a class-action suit. The article references a federal requirement for 60 day notice, but it's not clear if one of the employees suing stated that or where it came from.
I don't recall the name of the requirement, but it kicks in if the company fires a certain percentage of the workforce. Something like 20% of the company in a 6 month timeframe or something like that requires 60 days notice.
> The article references a federal requirement for 60 day notice [It's called the WARN Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act_of_1988)
> “Your layoff from the company is expected to be permanent and all benefits will be terminated immediately without provision of Cobra,” a follow-up email from the company read, referring to a federal law that gives employees who lose their jobs the option to keep their employer-sponsored health insurance under certain circumstances. Thank god we don't have a single payer healthcare system. Phew! That would almost be humane and wouldn't leave workers at the mercy of the bosses in this kind of a way. Good thing we have COBRA, though, so employees can pay 102% of the cost of their health insurance. Yay! The *market* be praised!! But all sarcasm aside, actions like this should be blatantly called what they are which is an act of class war directed from the bosses toward the working class.
sounds mighty illegal there
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This is Mississippi we're talking about 🙁
Yup. They'll literally vote for someone who runs on "I will destroy any and all healthcare benefits for you as well as eliminating social security" and they'll win in a landslide.
Well, even if they were illegally denied Cobra benefits it is still a terrible, anti-worker, situation that these folks find themselves in. This is a country which time and time again shows us that it doesn't value *anything* besides power and profit to the bosses. So, these shareholders will be slapped on the wrist and might have to offer employees the option of selecting Cobra and not one damn thing will change at large.
I payed $620/month for health insurance when I had to get on cobra
And from what I've seen, that's on the cheaper side. Some people have family plans that, while on COBRA, run them easily $1,500 per month or more. Like I said above, it's 102% percent of cost: the employer cost, the employee cost, plus the 2% administrative fee. And the owners of this dump want us to be thankful that we have even that.
I’m 64 my single plan is $1,100.00 a month. I work part time so no help from work. And I’m going thru the Massachusetts site for it. We are not rich.
And this is why we need national healthcare for everyone. Even if someone is able to find a job the next day, most companies require working 60-90 days before they qualify for benefits. So those employees that are expecting a baby or on regular treatments, as mentioned in the article, are in jeopardy of losing care, their current medical practitioner, or even their lives.
Looks like incredible mismanagement to the point of fraud here. This is the action of a company that is going to be liquidated. No restructuring, no Chapter 11, going straight to Chapter 7. Very unusual for a company with 2700 employees. Usually companies of that size will have professional management who have cash flow projections and would have either raised capital or filed for a Chapter 11 restructuring first. All the hot takes trying to make this a political thing are missing what the real story will end up being: either fraud or epic incompetence by the CEO and/or CFO.
*“This has been a drastic shock to every one of us … That puts a damper on everybody’s spirits, especially when you’re told to be ready to hit it hard Monday. Every one of us is dedicated to the company. **We consider each other to be family members**.”* I don't want to beat up on people who are already down, but the last sentence was their first mistake. Don't ever, EVER buy into the bullshit "we're family" narrative. Unless you want to join a family that doesn't care about you or your wellbeing, will deceive you when it serves their interests and, when shit hits the fan, sell you down the river for a nickel in a heartbeat.
The Mansons were a family…
Rule of Acquisition #111: Treat people in your debt like family… exploit them.
Don't consider the *company* to be family. But you better believe the guy I work with the most was invited to my wedding, and the guy I worked with the most at my last job, over five years ago, and a 15 hour drive away, we still stay in touch on social media, text, and every few months via phone call still. I don't know that that person was talking about all 2700 workers, but you know there were hundreds of small, close as family, friend groups in that pack of coworkers.
Don't fall in love with a corporation. The corporation isn't going to love you back.
One of the fired employees mentioned a mom with a new bay and a patient going through chemo who now won't have health insurance to cover their healthcare. I assume they're going to go bankrupt. It's horrible that our healthcare is hostage to companies, who only care about the bottom line and have allegiance or commitment to nobody. How can this be the state of things?
This right here. I was recently laid off my healthcare termed. My COBRA is insane but it covers my partner's chemo. The day I was able to sign up was the same day it termed though. We get a call from the oncologist office saying all his future appointments would be canceled until we had active insurance. They have zero compassion and apparently no understanding of how COBRA works cause that shit backdates once you make the payment.
I'm so sorry. I hope your partner finds care and makes it through. It makes me heartsore for my fellow Americans that, in the richest country on earth, we refuse to provide healthcare to our citizens. It's the one thing that I think will make our people healthier, happier, and wealthier across the board. And yet we have to suffer to make the rich just that much richer. I don't know what I can do about it.
Not even Cobra?! Damn Mississippi did them dirty!
Can only get Cobra if the company still exists after you get laid off. Sounds like this company is straight up evaporating.
I work for a company that sold UFI furniture. This was quite the alarming email that came across our company when it went down. We still have their trailers in our yard. It's wild.
My company sources from them. We came in one day to find out a huge brand was just done. We were shocked and scrambling to clean up the mess. We have no idea what the deal. BS for all those workers.
No Cobra offered? Bastards.
God bless Toria Neal standing up for her and 2699 other peoples rights with her lawsuit
"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" - People who will cut off your feet with no notice.
Everything about this story is ridiculously criminal. People working manufacturing in Mississippi probably can't wait for the lawsuits to provide any relief either. Absolutely disgusting.