Tweeter closes without a squeak; employees left with no crossover

Brett — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:53:14 +0000

Aside from the tragic lack of punnage in the Boston Globe front-of-website story, the Globe's lame coverage neglects to dig into the matter with any kind of depth. Amusingly enough, there is a similar but far more detailed story in the business section. Still, plenty missing. For example: Why is the Massachusetts Attorney General "aware of the situation and reviewing it"? Well, this is a guess, but probably due to the WARN Act (regulating minimum notice to mass-terminated employees), MGL C149 S148 (employees must get payment in-hand day-of-termination for all wages), and state consumer law (when it declared "all sales final.")

The Globe also fails to note that 1.Tweeter laid off about 650 people in 2007 when it closed 48 stores, which also may have been a WARN act violation; 2.Last month someone filed a lawsuit in Delaware citing the WARN Act; 3.Liquidation was a family affair in 2007, as the chairman of Tweeter and the Managing Director of the liquidation firm (who also sits on Tweeter's board) are brothers (and guess what: another director on Tweeter's board heads up Hilco Merchant Resources, one of the liquidators of Circuit City and Linens and Things); 4.Tweeter and its liquidation firm tried to sucker people into a "free gas" promotion that was probably worthless given they were already under Chapter 11; 5.Tweeter filed for Chapter 11 in June of 2007.

No wonder the Globe can't sell papers...

warn act

Tweeter closes without a squeak; employees left with no crossover