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Labor Standing Behind Laid-Off WorldCom Workers
Employees of bankrupt WorldCom and the AFL-CIO have filed papers asking a federal judge to grant the company’s request for court approval to pay all remaining severance benefits owed to workers who have lost their jobs.
“It’s critical that the workers at WorldCom receive the severance pay and other benefits they are entitled to, but these payments won’t make up for the thousands of jobs lost and the millions lost from workers’ retirement accounts,” CWA President Morton Bahr said.
The court documents ask the judge to order all of the severance payments in a lump sum, make extended health benefits available retroactively to avoid gaps in coverage, and provide commission statements and other documentation to employees for use in their job searches.
Laid-off workers have given up paying for health care, and some have lost homes. “They cannot afford to wait for the money they are owed,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.
Just before WorldCom’s bankruptcy filing on July 21, Sweeney wrote to CEO John Sidgmore and asked him to support full severance for his employees. The company, however, asked the court for permission to pay workers only $4,650, the present federally set limit in bankruptcy filings. Many workers are owed double or triple that amount.
Laid-off workers began pressuring the company to pay what it owed. They followed a model of activism similar to that of the Enron workers, who, with the AFL-CIO’s help, won a precedent-setting $34 million severance settlement in August.
“We’re not just doing this for ourselves,” ex-WorldCom
employee Ben Barile said. “We’re fighting for the rights of employees still at WorldCom, and employees at every other company. You just can’t tell if this could happen to you.”
The AFL-CIO has set up a phone hotline and web site to help the workers and is pushing for federal legislation that would raise the limit on payments to workers laid off due to bankruptcy to $13,500. “The American labor movement is standing behind WorldCom employees,” Bahr said. “That’s what having a union behind you helps guarantee: fair treatment for workers.”
“It’s critical that the workers at WorldCom receive the severance pay and other benefits they are entitled to, but these payments won’t make up for the thousands of jobs lost and the millions lost from workers’ retirement accounts,” CWA President Morton Bahr said.
The court documents ask the judge to order all of the severance payments in a lump sum, make extended health benefits available retroactively to avoid gaps in coverage, and provide commission statements and other documentation to employees for use in their job searches.
Laid-off workers have given up paying for health care, and some have lost homes. “They cannot afford to wait for the money they are owed,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.
Just before WorldCom’s bankruptcy filing on July 21, Sweeney wrote to CEO John Sidgmore and asked him to support full severance for his employees. The company, however, asked the court for permission to pay workers only $4,650, the present federally set limit in bankruptcy filings. Many workers are owed double or triple that amount.
Laid-off workers began pressuring the company to pay what it owed. They followed a model of activism similar to that of the Enron workers, who, with the AFL-CIO’s help, won a precedent-setting $34 million severance settlement in August.
“We’re not just doing this for ourselves,” ex-WorldCom
employee Ben Barile said. “We’re fighting for the rights of employees still at WorldCom, and employees at every other company. You just can’t tell if this could happen to you.”
The AFL-CIO has set up a phone hotline and web site to help the workers and is pushing for federal legislation that would raise the limit on payments to workers laid off due to bankruptcy to $13,500. “The American labor movement is standing behind WorldCom employees,” Bahr said. “That’s what having a union behind you helps guarantee: fair treatment for workers.”