It appears to be the ‘layoff season’ in the United States, as a Mississippi-based furniture company abruptly fired all of its 2,700 of its employees ahead of Thanksgiving, according to media reports. Employees were reportedly sent a text message asking them to not come to work the next day.
According to the New York Post, the message sent to the employees by the company said, "At the instruction of the board of directors ... we regret to inform you that due to unforeseen business circumstances, the company has been forced to make the difficult decision to terminate the employment of all its employees, effective immediately, on Nov. 21."
"Your layoff from the company is expected to be permanent and all benefits will be terminated immediately without provision of Cobra," the employee received a follow-up email from the company.
The company also instructed its drivers to immediately "return equipment, inventory and delivery documents", regardless of "whether or not [they] have completed [their] delivery".
Unfortunately, the employees were not given any explanation for why they were laid off abruptly. The two-decade-old company dissolved its operations suddenly. New York Post reports say that over the summer, the company had fired its chief executive, chief financial officer and executive vice president of sales.
A UFI spokesperson told Freightwaves.com that workers were later told they could come to their workspaces to "gather their belongings."
Langston & Lott, based in Booneville, Mississippi, filed the first-class action against United Furniture Industries, Inc., alleging it violated the WARN Act when terminating all 2,700 of its employees.
"Under the WARN Act, the employees of United Furniture were entitled to either a 60-day notice or 60 days of severance pay - neither of those was provided," Jack Simpson, attorney for Langston & Lott, told FreightWaves. "If appointed class counsel, we look forward to vigorously investigating the actions of United Furniture and seeking as much compensation the terminated employees are legally entitled to."