The Star-Bulletin and Advertiser may be history, and hundreds of former employees now out of work, but those who didn’t get 60 days notice of their terminations apparently can’t just get on with their lives.
Federal law, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, requires a large employer like Oahu Publications to give employees 60 days notice if they are going to lose their jobs. Many, perhaps most, employees didn’t get the full 60 days. Maybe nobody did, for all I know.
But instead of just cutting them loose and making the required payments, Oahu Publications has apparently told employees they are considered “on call” for unspecified duties for the 60 days. And what this means is that they can’t take other jobs without forfeiting the pay and benefits they’re due.
The worst part seems to be the uncertainty and continued lack of clear information from the company.
According to an email circulating among those who distributed the Advertiser:
We have not been able to pin HA down on the guidelines of this “On Call” scenario. No agreement on at least 1, 6, 12, 24 or 48 hr notice, no agreement on what would happen if you do not answer their phone call or are unable to work due to a previously planned event or your other job schedule. You could be fired and forfeit WARN for any or all of these circumstances. HA says that they will deal with them as they happen. In other words, they will be the judge, jury and executioner.
Below is the full email circulating among non-newsroom employees, but I’m told folks in the newsroom got the same information.
from HA spokesman Cliff Jamile last night, no one has yet been terminated. We are all call till end of the 60 day WARN pay period (60 day notice or 60 days pay). We may be called to do some currently undetermined work that should be unrelated to your past job(i.e. district managers should not be delivering papers, spotting, recruiting, soliciting etc.). Working ANY NEW JOB that replaces the job you had at the advertiser will be in essence informing HA that you have RESIGNED FROM YOUR POSITION AT HA and have therefore relinquished your right to the full 60 day warn payment that the fed government requires HA to pay.
ILWU spokesperson Dave Mori: “Until HA can clarify this situation, we are going to tell our DM’s (district managers) not to take outside work unless they wish to resign (from HA and forfeit warn). Furthermore, Full time DM’s who accepted independent agencies have resigned and thus will not get full warn pay and medical. This is our interpretation, if it is wrong, please let us know before it gets out.”
Twice there was no response to this statement from spokesperson Jamile.
SOME IMPORTANT EXAMPLES OF WHAT WOULD TRIGGER THIS SECENARIO
District Managers who have chosen to take independent agencies have in essence resigned from their position at HA and therefore will NOT BE GETTING THE FULL 60 DAY WARN PAY AND MEDICAL.
Any cash work done for by p/t single copy dms to put Star Advertiser racks out before the roll out of the new paper will be telling HA they have resigned and have therefore FORFEITED THE FULL 60 DAY WARN PAY.
Any work done by any HA employee for past or newly created independent Home Delivery Agents will be telling HA that you have resigned and you WILL NOT BE GETTING THE FULL 60 DAY WARN PAY.
As mentioned previously, this on call work should be unrelated to your past job duties. BUT, if ordered to do something, you should just do it. Saying no could be judged to be insubordination and you could be fired, forfeiting your warn pay.
We have not been able to pin HA down on the guidelines of this “On Call” scenario. No agreement on at least 1, 6, 12, 24 or 48 hr notice, no agreement on what would happen if you do not answer their phone call or are unable to work due to a previously planned event or your other job schedule. You could be fired and forfeit WARN for any or all of these circumstances. HA says that they will deal with them as they happen. In other words, they will be the judge, jury and executioner. This is how things are when you are “at will” or “non-union” situation.
If you find any meaningful employment that could possibly pay you LESS then the amount you would get under the 60 day warn notice, you should ask your new employer if you can delay starting your new job until the HA 60 day warn period is over.
Through it all HA has continued to REFUSE to release us from this “on call” status so that we may go on with out lives. And has refused to answer any questions about why they are doing this.
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so the plan was to merge papers, then play this game in some sick attempt to reduce Mr. Black’s total liabilities? It’s not as if there wasn’t a schedule for winding down the Advertiser, David Black knew when he was gonna shut it down, so why no timely 60 day notices?!
Smacks of shenanigans
These people have been placed “on call”, meaning they’re not being allowed to earn a living for two months?
I don’t understand why a large corporation can’t simply do the right thing and make sure the people who helped keep the company running are treated fairly and respectfully.
It’s often tough enough to get along financially even when one is working full-time.
This 60-day “on-call” status is merely playing with an imaginary termination date so these companies can claim a proper time frame for the layoff notice.
If I understand this correctly, these people can’t get unemployment benefits yet because they’re not yet unemployed. This is an awful way to say “mahalo”: forcing former employees into financial hardship and possibly losing their homes.
Don’t forget they also are holding out on severances.
oh good lord…
I was told that the “on call” employees are all tied to the accounting department to wind down the financials. All others get paid for staying at home under the WARN act until July. Not sure about what happens if they find another job in the meantime. Severance payments have been discussed over and over….there’s a union grievance that is preventing the severance to be paid BUT they wouldn’t be paid anyway until at least July when the weekly paychecks stop. Sooo…nobody is missing anything …yet.
You were told wrong or are a company shill. ALL employees are considered on call/subject to recall. If you find another job, HA has said it would consider that a resignation and it would end your warn payment AND jeopardize severance. Severance being paid after July only applies because the company is choosing to consider everyone still employed through July; if people were laid off today they could well get severance today.
WARN payments are actually not WARN payments if they are structured like normal pay. Gannett paid the WARN payment immediately upon terminating employees. The problem with what HA/OPI is doing is that they said they said they were closing on June 6 but did not make clear they were planning to string everyone along until the very end, so people who made other plans may be at risk now.
The decision may also carry implications for health benefits.
The message on call went company wide, so everyone laid off is “on call”. We are still getting paid, last checks due July 2nd. BUT if we find another job we loose the pay that is owed to us under WARN. We might be able to collect unemployment but won’t know until our applications are reviewed.
Basically it SUCKS, many former staffer wondering why Black/Francis/OPI and Gannett keep tormenting us!
Word out today from the Unemployment Office is that we are NOT eligible for unemployment and will need to apply/re-apply after July 6.
It is pretty stupid though that if someone finds work between now and then that they will lose their severance. That’s just not right, company shill or not. Makes no sense.
I read this post by Ian early this morning. It brought such saddness and anger I could not bring myself to write anything at the time. Now I simply will say I will not buy any of this companies publications for the foreseeable future. That is easy for me I generally get my news online and on Public radio and television. Oh, and I live on Maui.
ditto Jon The Bru. I say hire an attorney. This is utter bullshit, and unfortunately, there is no one around to report of it en masse! Imagine all the other bullshit that will slide by! Hold on Hawaii, here we go!!!
Star-Bulletin news staff who were fired suddenly had severence pay deposited directly in their bank accounts without their knowledge, before they were dismissed. One was an editor with 13 years on the staff.
The worst thing about all this isn’t the fact that HAMI/OPI has decided to minimize its liabilities by making employees wait for WARN and unemployment benefits, it’s that they haven’t been straight up about it from the start. Once the layoff notices were issued, they could have, and should have, told people what to expect, from COBRA to WARN. Instead, people were left on their own to figure it out, and to be told first one thing than another. Insult added to injury. And for its part, Gannett simply walked away and had to be dragged in to pony up COBRA guidance. The whole thing was needlessly disruptive. Cruel, really.
Even the most piggish employers normally make an effort to help people being laid off. The agony being suffered by hundreds of Hawaii individuals and families because of Gannett and Black is nothing less than outrageous.