Workers Always Getting Screwed
By 
Bed, Bath, and Beyond is closing. Who gets hurt? The workers of course:
Laid-off workers at previously shuttered stores received severance packages, and so Zaccagna assumed it would be the same for her store. The severance plan for full-time workers laid off in earlier rounds of Bed Bath & Beyond closures was one week of regular pay for each year of service, with a maximum of 10 weeks severance. For supervisors, the maximum was 12 weeks of severance pay.
But Bed Bath & Beyond never paid severance to Zaccagna and her co-workers. The company also told employees it would not match annual contributions to their 401(k) retirement savings plans they paid into for all of 2022.
“In the end, I’m heartbroken. I’m very disappointed in how they handled it,” she told CNN. “It was a punch in the gut.”
She feels the company abandoned her and co-workers and that their years of loyalty meant nothing at the end.
But the timing of the layoffs angered her most.
Bed Bath & Beyond, based in Union, New Jersey, laid off 1,295 workers in its home state, including at Harmon Face Value stores, just days before a new law kicked in that mandates severance pay — equal to one week of pay for each year of employment — for workers who lose their job in mass layoffs at large employers in New Jersey.
The law also requires that large employers, defined as businesses with more than 100 workers, must give workers at least 90 days notice for mass layoffs, up from 60 days. Prior to the law’s enactment, employers in the state were only required to pay workers severance if they failed to notify employees they were being let go within 60 days. The law also expands severance benefits for part-time workers and includes other worker protections.
“Knowing the law took effect a week after — it’s even worse,” said Zaccagna, who is job hunting and plans to start a new career outside of retail. “Every single person in New Jersey knows it’s wrong.”
Well, except for every Republican.