Ex - Enron Workers Seek Severance Pay 


      January 20, 2002
      Ex - Enron Workers Seek Severance Pay
      By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
      Filed at 6:47 p.m. ET
      HOUSTON (AP) -- Nearly 200 former Enron Corp. (news/quote) workers have 
      united to demand severance pay from the bankrupt energy giant that 
      abruptly laid them off last month.
      ``We're about getting just due compensation for former employees,'' said 
      Rod Jordan, 63, one of 4,500 employees who lost their jobs when the 
      company filed the largest-ever corporate bankruptcy.
      He said the group, the Severed Enron Employees Coalition, wants U.S. 
      Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez to approve a separate creditors' 
      committee comprised solely of former Enron workers.
      Members of the current unsecured creditors' committee include banks, such 
      as J.P. Morgan & Chase Co. and Citigroup Inc. (news/quote), and a former 
      in-house Enron lawyer laid off last month to represent employees.
      ``He's outnumbered,'' Jordan said. ``We want equal representation.''
      Bruce McGovern, a law professor specializing in bankruptcy at the South 
      Texas College of Law in Houston, said it's unlikely Gonzalez would create 
      a new committee just for former employees, because it could prompt other 
      creditors to demand their own committees as well.
      ``They may feel the same concern about the current committee not 
      adequately representing their interests,'' McGovern said. ``You'd end up 
      with a lot of committees, and that would be unworkable.''
      George Whittenburg, one of the SEEC's attorneys, said former workers who 
      lost 401(k)s loaded with Enron stock now worth less than a dollar, as well 
      as their jobs, ought to have more say.
      Enron collapsed amid revelations of questionable financial partnerships 
      that allowed it to hide debt, and stock that traded near $80 a year ago 
      plummeted as investors and energy traders fled.
      Gonzalez approved $4,500 in severance for each of the laid off workers, 
      which pales in comparison to the thousands more they would normally 
      receive under Enron's severance policy.
      Matt Mitchell, who was laid off from Enron's broadband unit last summer, 
      received the last of his $39,500 in severance pay on Nov. 15 -- less than 
      three weeks before Enron filed for bankruptcy. But Janice Hollaway, who 
      was laid off from the broadband unit in November, was supposed to receive 
      $37,000 in severance pay by Nov. 30. She and several former colleagues 
      received the same $4,500 allotment.
      ``Evidently they pulled the plug on all nonessential payments before they 
      even filed for the bankruptcy,'' Hollaway said.
      The company told employees laid off just before and after the bankruptcy 
      filing to file claims with the bankruptcy court -- and become creditors -- 
      if they sought more severance pay.
      Enron said filing a claim doesn't guarantee payment, and any payment would 
      come ``at the conclusion of the bankruptcy proceedings, which typically 
      take months or years.''
      Enron's severance policy says eligible workers are entitled to a week's 
      pay for each full or partial year of employment and another week's pay for 
      each $10,000 they earned in salary, up to a maximum of 26 weeks. 





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