Ten years or so ago there was a wave of layoffs from my old company - we were given two week notices and we continued to work right up to our last day - and then our departments (individually, of course) took us out to lunch to say goodbye.
For the last few years, if you're laid off, you're out the door the same day - and a security guard escorts you out. I guess too many people going postal.
But now we've got the latest outrage - the entire brokerage staff of MF Global not given any notice, apparently, just getting an email telling them they're fired - though they will apparently get a few week salary - probalby two weeks in lieu of notice...
Now admittedly, the company is bankrupt, so what else could they do but let the people go...but they could have done it a bit more gently, a bit more respectfully!
I suppose the Occupy Wallstreeters are happy - over a thousand people out of work, just in time for Christmas.
Hopefully these guys - being college educated and making good money - had put aside at least a year's worth of savings...
And of course now they can go on to unemployment for 99 weeks.
http://news.yahoo.com/more-1-000-mf-global-workers-let-164926939.html
NEW YORK (Reuters) - MF Global fired all 1,066 of its brokerage employees on Friday, triggering anger and resentment about the firm's collapse after bad bets on European debt under former CEO Jon Corzine's leadership.
How the final blow was delivered upset many staff -- with some learning by email and others through news on the television.
"Fifteen years and no severance!" shouted one angry MF Global employee as he left the firm's offices on 5th Avenue in Manhattan after hugging the receptionist and doorman.
The trustee in charge of liquidating the brokerage said in a statement that the workers were let go immediately, though they will be paid through November 15 and up to 200 will be rehired to help with the wind-down.
The timing couldn't be worse for the employees. Not only is the U.S. unemployment rate at 9 percent, other Wall Street firms have been firing staff in recent months as trading profits decline and tighter regulation takes hold.
"The lives of so many people have been disrupted. We did not even get told individually, we got a group email," said MF Global analyst Pierre-Yvan Desparois outside MF Global offices in Manhattan.
"The company had a lot of potential, it did not have to end like this. I'm a credit analyst and I could have told Corzine not to invest 100 percent in the sovereign debt situation. He placed bets with people's lives," said Desparois.
That Corzine criticism was echoed by Todd Thielmann, a broker with MF Global in Chicago.
"His ego has ruined a lot of lives," said Thielmann. "It was more about the execs at the company than the grunts."
Another employee who worked in market data at the firm in New York for three years said she would have never left.
"It was a great job. The camaraderie, the company was great. But people at the top let us down. It came as a complete shock," she said.
Not every employee saw the pink slip email, and not everyone was surprised.
A broker in Chicago learned about the termination through news reports and said employees were being called into meetings as the media began reporting the development.
"When you are working for a company that is bankrupt, you know it's coming," said an MF Global broker who attended a 20-minute meeting in New York.
MONEY STILL MISSING
The firings come as the trustee, James Giddens, works to identify and locate the brokerage's assets, including $600 million in missing customer money. Giddens is trying to account for all of the brokerage's assets with help from forensics investigators at Ernst & Young. The trustee said he has also retained Deloitte to help with the transfer of about 17,000 commodities accounts worth roughly $1.5 billion.
Federal agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, are investigating whether the money missing from customer accounts may have been improperly mixed with the firm's funds.
Giddens was appointed to liquidate the brokerage after MF's parent company declared bankruptcy on October 31, having lost on risky bets on European debt.
The bankruptcy shocked Wall Street, in part because the company was run by former New Jersey Governor and Goldman Sachs head Jon Corzine, who advocated for tough regulations on Wall Street firms during his political career.
Corzine resigned last week, saying he would not seek about $9 million in severance.
SOME WILL BE REHIRED
Between 150 and 200 of the MF Global brokerage employees will be rehired to help with winding down the business and processing bankruptcy claims, Giddens said in his statement.
"The termination of employees and closure of operations is a necessary part of the court-ordered liquidation... and is consistent with the trustee's obligations," he said.
The parent, MF Global Holdings, said in a statement that it was "saddened by the trustee's actions today to terminate so many of our colleagues."
Giddens also said on Friday that his team is working to clear out the brokerage's New York offices as soon as possible and rent smaller, less expensive space as the liquidation moves forward.
MF Global's Chicago offices will continue to be leased for an undetermined amount of time, he said.
As for the employees, they are heading off into the great unknown.
"We were down to 8 people on the floor and only 2 of them have found jobs," said Thielmann, who plans to start over as an independent broker in the corn options pit trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade.
"I'm on my own now but it's going to be really hard to get customers. They're scared, they've taken any excess money out of all firms now and they don't know who to trust. Customers are pulling funds out of accounts, that's bad for liquidity and bad for markets," he said.
The brokerage liquidation is In re MF Global Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-2790.
MF's bankruptcy case is In re MF Global Holdings Ltd, in the same court, No. 11-15059.
And one does have to wonder - who is left in the company? Not the people who did all the work, obviously, but all the executives - do they still have their jobs? Even the ones who drove the business into the ground?
I'm reminded of a case of a bankrupt bookstore chain - albeit in Australia. All the employees were fired, including accountants who were paid $25 an hour or so, aand new accountants from the bankruptcy receivership firm were brought in to deal with the bankruptcy, and they were getting paid $300 an hour to do so!
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