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United Furniture employee: Company-wide termination ‘tore me apart’

She was looking forward to a big family Thanksgiving when Toria Neal got a text that upended her life: the mother of four was losing her job, along with everyone else in her company.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Neal, 36, told The Post. “The text said we were all being terminated and all our benefits including our health insurance were being terminated effective immediately. I had a really bad breakdown right there on the spot. I thought, what am I going to do?”

Neal and other workers at United Furniture Industries were shocked this week when the company canned all 2,700 of them at once, giving the news in a text message just after midnight Tuesday.

Neal has four children under the age of 21, and “a lot of bills to pay,” she said.

“I couldn’t sleep after I got the text,” she said, breaking down in tears on the phone. “It tore me apart. It felt like such a betrayal. Not just of me but of all of us. I worry about the older employees there who take medication every day and won’t be able to afford it after today without health insurance.”

The devastating news came by text message around midnight Tuesday.
The life-altering news arrived via text message around midnight Tuesday.
Kenzie Neal

Neal worked as a traffic coordinator at the Mississippi branch of United Furniture. Some workers were asleep and didn’t see it until the next morning. Some reportedly began driving to work before they read the message.

“I thought it was a joke,” said Javier Monroy, 58, who worked as a purchasing manager in the company’s California plant, about receiving the termination text message. “A few of us drove to the plant Tuesday to get our stuff and we realized it wasn’t a joke.”

Monroy was still placing orders and readying trucks to roll out on their deliveries just hours before he and the other employees were sacked.

Neal has accused the company of violating federal law by not giving 60 days notice before the termination.
Neal has accused the company of violating federal law by not giving 60 days notice.
Kenzie Neal

“At least I’m married with a wife whose health insurance I can get on,” Monroy said. “I worry about my friends at the company. One of them is a single mother and the other just started chemotherapy treatment for cancer last week. They won’t be able to afford a second one with our health insurance cut off.”

The company violated federal law by failing to give 60 days’ notice before dissolving the operations, Neal and Monroy are charging in a lawsuit.

It was a difficult Thanksgiving, said Neal, who has been with United Furniture since 2015.

There are no explanations yet as to why the 20-year-old company ceased operations.
There are no explanations yet as to why the 20-year-old company ceased operations.
United Furniture Industries/Face

“It was so hard and so emotional,” she said of the holiday. “I have family members who work there as well. I still find it difficult to talk about without breaking down.”

“We all left Monday saying, see y’all tomorrow not knowing we might not see some people ever again,” Neal said. “We still have personal stuff in there but it’s all locked up right now. We had no inkling anything like this was going to happen, either.”

Monroy said United Furniture owed a lot of money to outside vendors.

“They owe millions everywhere,” said Monroy, whose job entailed an awareness of the company’s finances.

He is also concerned about safety at the California plant. Monroy said he still has keys to the entire facility where everything from forklifts to staple guns have been left up for grabs — and so do other employees.

“I told one of the managers here who are just muppets for the bosses in Mississippi and he didn’t seem that concerned about who had the keys,” Monroy said. “But I’ve heard that employees here are going to storm the building Monday. I’m worried about that. People can go crazy in these types of situations. Someone needs to be more responsible here.”

Neal, 36, has four children under the age of 21 and
Neal, 36, has four children under the age of 21 and “a lot of bills to pay.”
Kenzie Neal

Some workers had shown up at the plant there last week after getting fired, WTVA in Mississippi reported.

“We are all ****ed off,” United Furniture employee Isaac Darkwah told the station. “We were working hard for them and then they treat us this way?”

Frelinda Isbell, who works with Darkwah, also sounded off about the mass layoffs on Twitter.

“If I start another job I have to wait 90 days to get insurance. They texted me in the middle of the night. I lost all my benefits and I’m a good employee. All my benefits are gone and I can’t go to the doctor. I don’t feel this is right. It is very wrong. It’s in the middle of the holiday. I have light bills, water bills and kids.”

Neal’s lawyer, Casey Lott, of Booneville, Miss., said the mass firing coupled with the abrupt termination of benefits is not only shocking — but illegal. Lott was the first attorney to file a class action suit last week against the company. Several more have been filed since.

Several employees have fired lawsuits claiming the firing was mismanaged.
Several employees have filed lawsuits claiming the firing was mismanaged.
United Furniture Industries/Face

The lawsuits are based on the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires companies with more than 100 employees to give 60 days advance written notice before layoffs or shutting down.

The mass firing was so mismanaged, Lott contends, that one of his clients in California was still buying inventory on behalf of the company Monday and that trucks were ready to roll out with deliveries that same day.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Lott told The Post.

“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,” the company said in messages to employees.

“With the exception of over-the-road drivers that are out on delivery. Your layoff from the company is expected to be permanent and all benefits will be terminated immediately without provision of COBRA.”

No one has yet explained why the 20 year old, Okolona, Miss-based company dissolved its operations so suddenly, but over the summer it had fired its chief executive, chief financial officer and executive vice president of sales, according to FurnitureToday.com. Several weeks later, some 500 employees lost their jobs at multiple facilities in Winston-Salem, NC, and Verona, Miss,. and Victorville, Calif.

https://nypost.com/2022/11/26/...ation-tore-me-apart/

Desperation met stupidity on the corner of bad luck and despair, and the democratic party was born.

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The Consumer Economy Has Completely Collapsed – “It’s a Ghost Town” for Holiday Shopping Everywhere

“Crowds? I see nothing. I’m surprised,” retail worker Jeremy Pritchett told FOX 2. “Normally, it’s wrapped all the way around the building. Today: no one.”

That’s the typical ground report from areas all over the country.  No one, literally almost no one, is doing any holiday shopping and the traditional Black Friday rush to get deals and discounts just didn’t happen.  Financial media are scratching their puzzlers, perplexed with furrowed brows.

Interestingly, almost every financial media outlet is using the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales this year.  Apparently, pretenses must be maintained.  Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews are having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales are strong.

“Look, over there. There’s a person buying something. Oh, wait, no, that’s just an employee dusting the empty cash register.”  At a certain point, one would have to believe reality would run head-first into the mass delusional pretending.  Maybe this holiday season will be it, maybe not.

Reuters – […] About 166 million people were planning to shop from Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday through this coming “Cyber Monday,” according to the National Retail Federation, almost 8 million more than last year. But with sporadic rain in some parts of the country, stores were less busy than usual on Black Friday.

“Usually at this time of the year you struggle to find parking. This year, I haven’t had an issue getting a parking spot,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser of the NPD Group Inc.



“It’s a lot of social shopping, everybody is only looking to get what they need. There is no sense of urgency,” Cohen added, based on his store checks in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.

At the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, there were no lines outside stores. A Toys ‘R’ Us employee was handing out flyers with a list of the Black Friday “door buster” promotions. (read more)

It’s almost Kafkaesque to see how the media are continuing to maintain economic pretenses, yet the reality of a completely collapsed consumer economy is physically staring them in the face.

(Bloomberg) – Activity Light at One San Francisco Mall (4:40 p.m.) – At the Stonestown mall in San Francisco, shoppers were few and far between. The Target and Zara stores were mostly empty, and there was no line for the mall’s Santa Claus. Uniqlo and Apple were the busiest locations, but they still weren’t crowded.

[…] Crowds were thin in the late morning at the Stamford Town Center mall. Kay Jeweler, empty. Safavieh, empty. Only a couple of people waited at the checkout line at Forever 21 and just a few were in line for a purchase at Barnes & Noble.

[…] At a Target store on Chicago’s North Side, the parking lot was barely half full at about 9 a.m. local time. Shoppers were greeted with $3 ornaments and discounted Christmas trees when entering, and the store seemed calm and relatively quiet.

[…] The Macy’s in Stamford, Connecticut, was neat and orderly — maybe a little too neat and orderly on a day associated with shopping chaos. The furniture section was nearly deserted, though there were more shoppers looking at shoes.

Cowboy State Daily

Biden’s Goal To Eliminate Oil Industry Jeopardizes Nearly $2 Billion For National Parks

Biden’s war on fossil fuels may reduce funding for America’s national parks, according to the Western Energy Alliance, a nonprofit energy industry association for the U.S. West.

The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), which was passed in August 2020, provides $1.9 billion for public lands and national park restoration, primarily from ons**** oil and gas development on federal lands.

The act combined the restoration and Land and Water Conservation funds, which supplies $900 million in matching grant money for state and local parks.

No Federal Oil

Biden campaigned on a promise that he was going to eliminate the oil industry, and since taking office he has taken more than 100 steps to make good on that promise. Net-zero goals, if achieved, will replace all coal, oil and gas with wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy.

If that happens, the alliance claims, the royalties from renewable industries operating on federal lands would only generate $11.5 million for the restoration fund.

Biden “promised no federal oil at all. That was his campaign pledge,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Cowboy State Daily. “Now, he ran into this nasty thing called the law.

“But if his policies were taken to their logical conclusion – no more federal

oil and gas would be allowed – then there would be no funding for the Great American Outdoors Act.”

Biden had placed a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing, but a judge in the Western District of Louisiana issued a permanent injunction against the Biden administration. The ruling concluded that the moratorium took steps reserved for Congress and violated the Mineral Leasing Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Basically Nothing

Of the $1.9 billion in funding for the GAOA, 70% goes to the National Park Service to reduce deferred maintenance in national parks. The rest goes to various agencies that manage federal lands.

The GAOA provided $204 million in funding for projects in Yellowstone National Park, including repairs to historic buildings and roads to the Old Faithful geyser. The fund may also support repair projects from last summer’s floods.

The fund also provided $145 million for projects in California’s Yosemite, and $219 million for projects in Blue Ridge, which straddles the North Carolina and Virginia border.

Sgamma said royalties from oil and gas production on federal land will support the restoration fund for some time. Existing leases will continue to produce for a while, but as production at those wells decline, the royalties will evaporate.

“The president’s preferred wind and solar contributes basically nothing to conservation,” Sgamma said.


Joe Biden's Senility Catches Karine Jean-Pierre in a Big Lie on Railroad Strike

While it hasn’t received much press lately, one of the most important stories in the country remains the looming possibility of a railroad strike. It goes without saying that a shutdown of most of the nation’s ability to transport fuel and consumer goods would be a disaster for the American public.

Prior to the 2022 election, a tentative deal was reached that froze things in place. What a coincidence, right? Who could have guessed that Democrat-backed unions would take one for the team to ensure that the nation didn’t meltdown before voters went to the polls? Yet, heading into the Christmas season, things remain on a knife’s edge.

That’s left the White House scrambling, and it also happens to be the setup for one of the most blatant lies told by the Biden administration. When pressed on whether President Joe Biden was “directly” involved in negotiations between the unions and the rail companies, his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, insisted over and over that he was.

But as a new video put together by the RNC shows, that’s simply untrue. How do we know? Because Biden himself told us.

It’s actually disturbing to watch Jean-Pierre tell the same lie no less than eight times, only to have Biden let the truth slip out just two days later. Over and over, the press secretary asserted that Biden was “directly involved” in the negotiations. On Thanksgiving, though, he stated that he has not “directly engaged” and that his team is handling things.

Was this a lack of coordination? I suspect not. Rather, it seems more likely that Biden’s senility struck again, leaving him unable to remember his talking points.

Here’s my big question, though. Why lie about this in the first place? Would anyone have even cared that Biden wasn’t actually directly involved? Would you have cared? I wouldn’t have. Heck, most Americans would probably prefer he not be directly involved, given the president’s long record of failure.

So, what’s the motivation to lie? I think it’s a product of deep-seated insecurity within the administration. In short, because Biden is so clearly out of it and not in charge, his handlers tend to overcorrect, pretending that he’s intimately involved in every important decision. Obviously, he’s not, and the attempt to make it seem that way leads to awkward situations like this where the president is directly contradicting his press secretary. I’ve lost count of how many times that’s happened over the last nearly two years.

What’s Jean-Pierre supposed to do, though? As bad as she is at her job, she can only work with what she’s got, and what she has is a man who can’t be counted on to keep the administration’s lies straight. Given that, maybe not lying so much would be prudent. Just a suggestion.

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