HOUSTON (AP) - Laid-off Enron Corp. workers joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in front of company headquarters to demand that employees be given the average $20,000 to $30,000 each under Enron's severance pay policy.
"We're here today to ask for relief - immediate relief," former Enron administrative worker Gwen Gray said during Wednesday's rally. Gray was among thousands of workers laid off the day after Enron filed for bankruptcy Dec. 2 with a promise they each would receive $4,500.
When she started issuing big checks to fellow employees in November, Gray said, she figured they were early severance payments as the company teetered toward bankruptcy. As it turned out, they were retention bonuses - issued to the nearly 600 Enron workers deemed critical to keeping the company afloat.
Soon after came the firings of thousands of others. "I had no idea that I was wielding the knife that would cut my own throat," said Gray, 42.
Jackson said company officials recognize U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez must approve any additional severance payments. He said Enron should push for the payments, even though high-powered creditors are owed billions of dollars. "Workers should be on the front side of recovery, not the back," he said.
Enron representatives didn't immediately return a call for comment Wednesday. Damon Silvers, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO, said the amount of severance depends on each employee's length of service. He said officials estimate the 4,500 laid off workers are owed a combined $150 million, or as much as $30,000 each.
Individually, that's much less than the $101 million in retention bonuses given to nearly 600 workers, Silvers said. Many of those were traders who went to work Monday for Swiss investment bank UBS Warburg, which acquired Enron's trading operation earlier this month.
Silvers said officials hope Stephen Cooper, Enron's interim chief executive hired last month to lead the company out of bankruptcy, will support the pleas for the severance payments.
A group of about 500 former Enron workers, which calls itself the Severed Enron Employees Coalition, is also seeking severance pay, but with different strategies.
Last month the coalition sued several company officials and former Enron auditor Arthur Andersen LLP to try to obtain severance pay and recover vast retirement funds lost when the fallen energy giant imploded last year.
The group also has asked the bankruptcy judge to appoint a second creditors committee comprised solely of former employees to give workers a stronger voice in the case. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Feb. 27.