Pacific Plunder

Pacific Lumber should do right by employees
by Carolyn Campbell, Fortuna, 3/28/2007

Imagine that you have worked for a company for 34 years. You have rarely missed a day of work and you have always come into work on time. You have been what most employers would call a model employee.

Then one day, due to no fault of your own, you are told that this is your last day. The date is Dec. 1, 2006. Do not return to work on Dec. 4, 2006. You will be given two months’ pay and medical benefits until the end of January 2007 and a severance package based on the number of years that you have worked for the company.

On Dec. 4, you wake up in the morning feeling lost. What do you do now? You are 59 years old and you have a bad back from an injury that you sustained while working for this company. It feels funny not to be getting ready for work because, after all, you have had the same routine for 34 years.

You comfort yourself with the knowledge that with the severance package, you can pay off your bills and maybe find a job. You hope that someone will hire you at age 59 and with the knowledge that you have a bad back.

Then you read in the newspaper that your severance package is “on hold.” Your employer doesn’t even send you a letter telling you that your severance package is in jeopardy. You have to read it in the news.

The news article quotes Pacific Lumber Co. spokesperson Andrea Arnot as saying, “We take our employees very, very seriously and we tried to do the right thing.” Then she goes on to explain that the former employees were “no longer critical to the day-to-day running of the business.”

In other words, the employees were no longer needed, like a broken piece of equipment, so you just toss it out with as little thought.

Does this sound like a company that takes its employees seriously as stated in the above quote by Ms. Arnot?

My husband received two months’ pay and medical benefits and unemployment, but no notice of his termination, and no notice of a hold on his severance pay in exchange for 34 years of employment with the company. We aren’t even sure he will get the severance package.

Please, administrators at Pacific Lumber, don’t try to pretend you have the employees’ best interest in mind. This employee and his wife are no longer fooled. We learned the hard way.