Associated Press
HOUSTON — Gwen Gray spent part of last November issuing big-money checks to laid-off Enron workers she thought were early severance settlements as the company teetered toward bankruptcy.
As it turned out, the payments were part of more than $100 million in retention bonuses issued to nearly 600 Enron workers deemed critical to keep the company afloat. She and thousands of others were laid off the day after Enron filed for bankruptcy Dec. 2 with a promise they each would receive $4,500.
"I had no idea that I was wielding the knife that would cut my own throat," Gray, 42, said Wednesday.
Gray joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other laid-off workers in front of the company’s downtown Houston headquarters Wednesday to demand that employees be given an average $20,000 to $30,000 each of them is owed under Enron’s severance pay policy.
"We’re here today to ask for relief — immediate relief," she said.
Jackson said officials recognize U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez must approve any additional severance payments. Jackson 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 did not immediately return calls for comment.
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.
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