LISA WANG, a 46-year-old Allston mother of one, landed her job at the Linden Street plant right after emigrating from Guangzhou, China, in 1994. The electronics factory, Wang explains with the help of an interpreter, is the only American place of employment that she has ever known. She has done well, working her way up to $9 per hour as a technician in the product-testing department.
Her modest wage seems “pretty good for me,” Wang says humbly. She speaks little English, after all; she has few professional skills. “I rely on this job,” she says. “There are not many opportunities out there for me.”
So when Wang learned May 9 that Power-One International intends to close its Allston operation this fall, she was crushed. “I felt sad,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘What else will I do?’” The details of her severance package made her feel worse. The seven-year veteran had assumed that she’d receive a deal that would tide her over until she could find another job. But what she ended up with won’t last a month: Wang, like the average assembly worker at Power-One, will receive just three weeks’ severance pay. She has done better than some colleagues, however. Those who had spent five years or fewer with the company got two weeks’ severance. Meanwhile, those who had toiled at the plant for 10-plus years were offered only four. The meager amounts have left Wang wondering why a business as big as Power-One would “do so little for its workers.”
Gary Kenefick, the director of human resources at the Allston plant, contends that workers like Wang have received “a very appropriate package.” Neither Power-One nor any other corporation has any obligation under state or federal law to pay termination benefits. Often, he argues, low-wage workers get nothing when a plant shuts down. When asked whether he considers a few weeks’ worth of income adequate compensation for years of diligent work, he replies, “We think so.” Last month, he notes, Power-One began laying off more than 3000 employees, not only in Boston, but also in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and California. “We have to be consistent,” he says. “This is the same package given throughout the company.”
Wang disagrees; her dismay soon gave way to anger. Within days of hearing about the impending layoff, word spread through the factory about a disparity in the severance packages. Of the 265 production workers, about 40 who could operate certain types of equipment were selected to stay on and close up shop in September. These workers received a far better deal, including up to four months’ severance and a $1000 bonus. For Wang, the difference feels like a slap in the face. “I have sacrificed for this company,” she says. For years, she has relinquished evenings, weekends, and holidays for the good of the plant. “We were all good employees,” she says. “We were all loyal. So why the disparity?”
Pui Ying also cannot fathom the inequitable treatment. She has labored as hard as any other employee, says the 50-year-old Brighton resident; sometimes, she stayed on her feet for 10 hours straight simply to boost production. “Everyone does the same work,” she says. “We all work side by side. It’s just so unfair.”
Kenefick acknowledges that different severance deals exist, although he declines to discuss the specifics. But he maintains that the disparity is justified. The company asked a small group of workers to remain for three extra months. “If you want people to stay,” he says, “you have to provide an incentive. So we did.”
Yet workers grew disgruntled enough to confront management, and their complaints have led to a rather ugly fight. On May 21, as many as 75 employees stopped working for an hour in protest. When a handful approached their supervisor to discuss the disparity among the deals, workers say, the manager warned them to quit stirring up trouble. If they did not, they would lose what severance they had earned, and then some. “We were threatened,” says Xiu Yi Hu, 31, a Quincy resident who has operated machines at Power-One for nearly four years. “We were told we would be fired and arrested.”
Kenefick insists he has never witnessed an episode of intimidation. “This is not to say that it didn’t happen,” he says, “but we don’t believe we did anything wrong.” The May incident, however, prompted Hu and dozens of co-workers to visit the Chinese Progressive Association, a worker-rights group in Chinatown. There, they enlisted the legal aid of Cynthia Mark, an employment attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services. Mark helped the workers file a May 21 charge against Power-One with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which investigates unfair labor practices. “The company,” Mark says, “cannot threaten loss of a job just because workers have asked for a better deal.” The NLRB has since received a second charge against Power-One on behalf of employee Chi Yao Wu, who was suspended June 4 for threatening her boss with physical harm. Wu has denied making any such threats. Because the long-time employee had participated in the May protest and had signed her name to the workers’ list of demands for improved benefits, her suspension has been viewed as an effort, as the June 7 charge states, “to intimidate and discourage other workers from participation in future protected collective action.” According to NRLB supervisor Laura Sacks, the charges are still under investigation; both sides have taken part in agency-led negotiations. Says Sacks, “There will likely be a settlement, and the charges will be withdrawn.”
Despite such setbacks, Power-One workers have pumped up the pressure. They formed an ad hoc committee with the Chinese Progressive Association and other labor groups to push for what they consider a reasonable package, such as one week of severance pay for every year of service. They appealed to Boston city councilors, many of whom have shown up at the recent pickets. Councilor Brian Honan, who represents the Allston-Brighton neighborhood, also penned a June 20 letter to Power-One executives expressing his “grave concerns” over how the corporation has handled the plant closure. “I would urge you to recognize that you have a responsibility not only to your stockholders,” he wrote, “but also to the workers who have labored for years and contributed so greatly to the company’s financial success.”
These efforts, however, have failed to yield any results. After a June 11 meeting with the ad hoc worker group, management made what is likely to be its final offer: Power-One will grant an additional month of continued health insurance, but no additional severance or bonus. The public pressure may even have backfired. On June 15, as many as 225 workers arrived at the plant in the morning — only to be told that their layoff was effective immediately, three weeks earlier than anticipated.
Workers are convinced the move was a form of retaliation. “If we’re not here,” Ying explains, “they think we can’t complain. They want to get rid of us.”
Kenefick denies these allegations. “In no way was this retaliation for the pickets and protests,” he says. On the contrary, the company decided to let workers go early — while keeping them on the company payroll until the slated July 9 layoff date — because “our product-transfer process is moving ahead of schedule.... Their active services are not required any longer.”
To the workers, these words probably ring hollow. True, they won’t be left entirely out in the cold: because their jobs are going overseas — rather than being eliminated outright — the workers can collect up to 18 months of extended unemployment while enrolling in job-training courses under the federal government’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, which helps those who lose their jobs as a result of foreign competition and free trade. Still, the extra benefits cannot erase their feeling of betrayal. Power-One helped them realize the American dream — helped them buy their homes and raise their children. They never imagined that the company would then ship their jobs away to their former homeland.
The whole situation, observes Lydia Lowe, who also heads the Chinese Progressive Association, “is extremely ironic for these workers.” They know full well that a day of work in their native country pays as much as an hour of work here. “Given the money this corporation is saving by moving these jobs overseas,” Lowe says, “it should offer more to those left jobless.... It just raises the question: what is a company’s responsibility to the people who make it run?”
