'Slap in the face,' Former Christmas Tree Shops workers wait for final paychecks, bonuses
FOXBORO - A group of former employees stood in front of the closed Christmas Tree Shops store in Foxboro Thursday. It was covered with signs that say "Christmas Tree Shops is permanently closed."
"Today was payday," said Richard Seronick. He and his former coworkers were shocked when the pay did not arrive. It was supposed to cover the last two weeks they stayed on during the rush of close-out sales at the store's 49 locations.
"It's a slap in the face," said Raymond Shia, who worked at the Foxboro location.
"I use this money for groceries, so now I need groceries," said his former coworker Jane Sechovich. "I'm not going to pull it out of my other account, but I'm going to have to now… it's not fair," she said.
The frustrating discovery came after the company's lawyers said closing sales ran $14 million short of projections. The Delaware judge overseeing the company's bankruptcy and liquidation called the whole thing a "complete breakdown" and ordered that the employees be paid.
That hasn't happened.
"Nobody wants to work for free," said Jeremy Dicks, who spent 17 years as a manager at various locations, most recently in Salem, New Hampshire. He said he received a message to share with his employees before the store closed, promising a bonus for those who worked until the very end.
"I'm telling my people this, and they stuck it out, and we did the work, we did the work for the liquidator, and now it looks like the liquidator doesn't want to make good on it," Dicks told WBZ-TV.
WBZ reached out to attorneys for both the Christmas Tree Shops and the liquidator Hilco Global asking when former employees can expect their final paychecks but we have not heard back.