“We’re landing completely without a cushion,” said Conn, a document specialist and 12 year veteran of Dewey. “As an employee, what I need now is what the law provides. I’m pay check to pay check, like so many other people I get one more pay check, and then what? I won’t make rent next week.”
But Dewey wasn’t exactly forthcoming over the situation. “For two to three months we’ve been wondering who do we listen to?” she said. “Do we get our truth from blogs, from newspapers, or do we get our truth from internal communications, which were all sunshiny and optimistic. You can’t really make a decision on your figure with conflicts like that. You don’t really know.”
Maybe it’s all all a little clearer now. Dewey gave notice on May 4 that employees could lose their jobs at any time — and many have. In fact, some of the non-legal staff who were fired are joining a suit that address the federal injunction that companies follow the Worker Adjustment and Restraining Notification Act (WARN) laws. They’ve pretty much been cut without severance.
The mood of the Dewey has been described as “funereal.”
“People have been thrown under the bus” said one staff member. “It’s very sad.” Staff are “bursting into tears,” she also noted.
With collection agencies collecting up office equipment, Dewey has all the earmarks of a slow motion train wreck.