Insult to Injury: Borders Execs Sued Over Post-Bankruptcy Layoffs

You’d think that shutting down his retail chain would be the worst thing that Borders President Mike Edwards would need to deal with this year. But it looks like a new class-action lawsuit from some former employees could give that task a run for its money, in the horrible-ness arena.

The suit, filed by a group of roughly 300 employees at the company’s Ann Arbor, Mich. headquarters, claims that they were given little to no warning that they were about to lose their jobs. And, well, it actually kind of sounds like they have a point.

Headed up by Jared Pinsker, the suit claims that he and his fellow workers were entitled to 60 days’ notice before the company made a massive layoff, under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, according to Reuters. The act claims that this is the case when companies axe a third or more of their workers. Which kind of seems like the kind of thing that would happen when you completely shut down a company.

Of course, if you look back on how this whole bye-bye-Borders situation went down, it doesn’t totally seem all that surprising that employees there felt blindsided. On the morning of July 18, reports indicated that Edwards was still trying to find a buyer for the company. Mere hours later, he was announcing its closure. Talk about a 180.

Needless to say, this is an unfortunate development for Borders, which is already dealing with another legal morass. Just two days ago reports emerged that Borders was suing Next Jump for “trade-secret misappropriation and trademark infringement.”

Well, at least they’re on the right side of that one?

TAGS: borders class action suit | borders lawsuit | borders sued over layoffs | mike duke borders

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