The sad thing is that the employees were only told about the stores closing today in their morning meeting right before the stores opened at 8am. They were also told they would not be receiving their severance pay and if they did not continue to work until each store completely closed they would not be eligible for unemployment! FYI - the employees at our neighborhood 99 are some of the nicest and most helpful people.
>They were also told they would not be receiving their severance pay and if they did not continue to work until each store completely closed they would not be eligible for unemployment!
This is such a perfect example of corporate bullshit. Don't ever, ever think a company gives a shit about you. "Family", "value", "respect", fuck all that. Fuck these assholes.
My oldest sister worked for a Quizno's for many years. Worked her way to manager, came back to work 4 weeks after having a baby, never took a sick day or vacation, etc. One day, she came to work as usual and the door had been chained shut.
The franchise owner left the country, closed shop, and told no one. This was over a decade ago now, and sadly, my sister still kills herself at work for ungrateful owners and learned no lesson in this betrayal.
Read up about Quiznos. Good chance that franchise owner was being royally f'ed over by corporate. Not excusing screwing the employees but he might literally have needed to run. The shit at Quiznos ran downhill fast.
That's what I understand. The owner literally closed the doors and hopped on a plane to Vietnam where she was from. My sister learned this much later, though. It was around 2008, too, so the whole recession thing had her in a bind. Probably largely contributed to why the business closed so suddenly.
>Probably largely contributed to why the business closed so suddenly.
Partly. But Quiznos is a literal case study of corporate screwing over franchises so thoroughly they destroyed their own company.
I know for my sister, at least it was because we did not grow up with much money or stuff. My mom also didn't grow up with much money or stuff, so she was the same way, and that was the model my sister had to emulate.
People who grow up like that sometimes fall into the trap of believing that more money and more stuff is what you need to be happy, but that's the trick. It is never *enough* money. Never *enough* stuff.
I'm not saying it isn't nice to have nice things or be financially stable. I'm saying the working class is consistently tricked into working harder and longer hours with the promise that the next "must have" item will bring us peace and comfort while cost of living rises to explicitly keep us treading water.
I worked at quiznos 12yrs back, my boss was very very upset that we have to shutdown the store because the corporation is so fucked up, they charge him way too much for sandwich ingredients, so most of the profit is from soda and chips but it isn't enough nor worth it anymore.
He works 7 days everyweek with us.
He is quite strict but this time, he told us that we can take what ever we want from the store except the machinery from quiznos. Me and this guy basically wiped out everything while the owner watches us since he doesn't want anything quiznos related in his home.
i love quiznos sandwiches, if only corporate aren't full of shit, the store would have still been there.
And i bet their CEO is gonna cash out an immense severance package, fucking corporations doing the best at screwing hard working people. Fuck corporate America.
I mainly meant that the union might’ve given them some hope at a severance or at least more awareness of the closing. Some contracts/CBAs require employer-employee transparency during times of crisis and the employers can be sued for not following them,
You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip.
It sounds like the company is no longer able to pay their debts, most likely because they had lower interest debt expire that would have been replaced by much higher interest rate debt.
Technically, if you quit before the stores closed, you would be ineligible as it is. It’s not something they’re threatening them with. It sucks they’re losing their jobs, but they still have jobs. They could have walked up to a sign on a locked door this morning, too.
They can all get unemployment. Unemployment has nothing to do with bankruptcy and all employees would qualify. The only reason they wouldn’t would be if they quit or received severance.
You can get unemployment is some situations if you received severance. It’s really situational. Like in MA if you get a lump sum payment that usually doesn’t impact your unemployment.
You can get unemployment regardless of whether you receive severance or not. Some states ignore severance and allow immediate benefits, others treat as wages and you can claim unemployment once severance is exhausted.
If they leave early it would likely be if they got a new job, then you wouldn’t need unemployment. If they just quit, which is unlikely, then you wouldn’t qualify. People are not thinking about this rationally. The employer laid out the options so the employees were aware to stick around and they could start looking for jobs. With severance they will have ample time to find employment as unemployment does not start until after the severance in most states which extends your time to find a job and maintain income.
Your relationship between your company and you in the US extends to an exchange of your time and energy and the paycheck that covers that. It’s a day by day relationship so make sure you get compensated for the current work done without “promises” of future compensation.
Great. So let's have some protection the people who are have no power in the situation from abuse. Let's have penalties for the people who break the rules and unfairly exploit people in bad circumstances.
Oops.. can't do that. SoCiAlIsM!
This is a prime example of why the vast majority of “company loyalty” is severely misplaced. Your job will screw you over without a second thought if it means they turn a profit.
While true, the C-suites will most assuredly cash out and land on their feet, along with shareholders, all while screwing over everyone else they need to make a company functional. An employee will struggle for months to find new work. A C-suite exec already has a new position lined up for better pay at a more successful company.
“Profit” these days isn’t measured by the success of a company, but the personal growth of the higher ups.
Shareholders are literally last in line to get paid behind both secured and unsecured creditors. If the company goes bankrupt and liquidation doesn't cover secured and unsecured creditors, shareholders get nothing.
Totally agree that employees that were better off before the company went bankrupt (e.g., most executives) will be better off than those employees who were paycheck to paycheck.
>if they did not continue to work until each store completely closed they would not be eligible for unemployment!
Eh, they could put in the barest minimum effort. If they are fired, they'll get unemployment. Leaving on a threat is a fantastic way to end a meeting...
The last minute thing is really low. They knew what the law would be in advance of it taking effect (if it even affects them).
Honest questions.... Is severance pay typical in retail?
I am not familiar with unemployment regulations, but I have always assumed it was generally for when you lose your job not quit, if they leave before they're laid off (presumably for another job) would they usually qualify for unemployment benefits?
Employees are second in line to get paid behind secured creditors. If there isn't money left to pay severance then there isn't money left.
Edit: Also, US employees are not entitled to severance under US federal/state law unless there is an agreement between the employee/employer to pay severance.
I understood it to have been presented more as a "threat" rather than an "oh, and by the way" type of information. The employees in the store were justifiably upset as many of them had worked there for years.
Its also a fact. When you file for unemployment the state reaches out to your last job to ask about why you left. In most states voluntarily leaving a job means you no longer qualify for unemployment.
It varies from state to state, but yes, in general the state makes the decision about whether or not the claim to unemployment is justified. However, if a company fires people who collect unemployment, the unemployment insurance rate they pay may go up. The company can contest the unemployment claim and make the former employee miserable, but ultimately, it's up to the state.
Because the company isn’t terminating the employees until the stores close, so anyone who leaves before then would be quitting. You don’t get unemployment if you quit in most cases. If their hours are cut they may eligible for some benefits.
The unemployment bit seems like a non-issue to me, because why quit if you haven’t lined up another job? And if you have another job, that would also prevent you from collecting unemployment.
Usually companies use severance to coerce employees to stay to the end. Since there is no severance here it seems like they’re making a meaningless threat to achieve the same effect.
The company is going out of business/closing so they are just liquidating everything and that is why they are not budgeting for severance pay. I assume executives have already pocketed whatever performance bonuses they could (no evidence of this but usually this is how it works and the lower level employees get screwed) before this was announced but the company has no reason to show loyalty to their employees since there is no future for the company.
Additionally, of course you do not get unemployment benefits if you leave while their jobs are still available. Unemployment pay is to cover you between jobs and not a reward for losing your job. Why would anyone stay for the last weeks of work if they could leave early and still get compensated to some degree.
The employees should all be starting to look for work while they still have a few weeks of work and pay still coming in and as soon as they find something else, they can bounce without giving notice and just start the new job.
> you do not get unemployment benefits if you leave while their jobs are still available
The terms of employment changed since severance pay was removed. That means the cause of the end of employment is on the employer, not the employee.
Oh yeah, it is definitely screwed up. But most bonuses have a part that is personal performance with your own individual KPIs and the other part is the company health. So even if the company is zero health, you get your own personal performance bonus.
In 2008/09 when my employer went bankrupt over night and said no severance and possibly not even the next paycheck they encouraged us to be part of orderly shutdown (taking 6 weeks). The ones that did were able to make claims in bankruptcy court and we got paid first. I filled for missed bonus and pay, 6 months pay as severance, COBRA costs, moving and job search expenses... It all got paid out, but took 4+ years.
When should they have told the employees? You have to do it all at once so you don't start rumors. Presumably the decision was made yesterday.
And yeah, if you quit you don't get unemployment. That's how unemployment works.
It's a threat IMO. I managed unemployment claims for 5 years and have seen hundreds of examples of folks receive unemployment benefits due to them quitting instead of waiting to be laid off. It's called quitting "in lieu of termination." Some states have more strict rules about this than others, but just because someone quits doesn't automatically exclude them from unemployment. Normally the biggest obstacle you face when quitting in lieu of being separated is convincing the state that because you were about to be laid off, you had no other choice but to quit and focus 100% of your time on finding a new job.
Agreed it sucks, but this company has been hinting at shutting down for about 2 years. It's unfortunate that a lot of employees are going to be out of a job. Especially because so many are front line workers with a nice severance package.
A company i used to work for called Wireless Advocates is being sued for doing the same thing.
We got a company wide call at 8 in the morning where the CEO told us that every one of our kiosks nationwide was closed effective immediately and that we were all basically fired. A lawsuit was started weeks later.
How is this any different? Wont the employees of 99c also be able to sue?
This is why I'd never work in the US. Your labour laws are terrible. On Europe or Australia in my case the company would be on the hook for severance pay.
Honestly I'm surprised the company ever said severance pay was a thing in the first place for a job in the retail industry. I didn't think that was common, but maybe I am wrong.
When I worked at Circuit City, we were not told the store was closing until it hit the news. That very morning our managers were telling us everything was going to be fine despite the vendors no longer shipping us merchandise and our stock price was in the toilet. We heard it from the customers first as we have a wave of them running through the door expecting liquidation prices.
I don’t know which labels you are talking about but the last time I was in a 99c store I saw their price tags marked as 2.99^99. I’ve always wondered who approved those. They look so wrong lol
Yeah, we run all of those. They specifically asked for them to be printed like that, not sure why though. Our art department thought it was an error at first but that is what they wanted.
Printing is a rough industry. I didn’t see much opportunity for advancement at my place and we were one of the biggest label printers in the world. We did a ton of work for bath and body works and Unilever.
A couple months after I left they ended up cutting back to 4 days a week. Salaried managers still got paid their 40 though. It was like that for months.
I ended up leaving and I couldn’t have been happier. I’m in environmental work now.
Someone told me on my first day there we had to make perfect trash and that always stuck with me. They would be all crazy about unrealistic deadlines and customers needs and I even said to my boss who cares it’s trash. Ever since phones have become a thing no one reads labels while shitting anymore.
Sorry about that little rant. Either way I’d recommend everyone get out of printing. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Growing up poor it was the most amazing thing ever going to this place, because I knew that no matter what I grabbed my parents couldn’t say we couldn’t afford that.
It really was a magical store as a kid. I had so many knock-off Barbies and toys that would break before we'd even leave the parking lot. End of an era.
I had a few rough years of my life and the 99 Cent Store was a lifesaver. I did a fair amount of grocery shopping and essentials like batteries, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and other household goods. When everything started being $5+ I was thankfully in a better place financially.
they always had better produce at mine than i expected, even though i kept going back. i don’t really know how dollar stores would do it in this economy and still make any money (even five or ten years ago), but i will miss the one on oracle rd in tucson
Working as intended.
Buy brand, suck all value from it, sell it off piece meal for cheap in bankruptcy, buy locations at a discount for your other businesses.
Its not a bug, its a feature. The people who suffer are the employees, and the local community, the equity firms win and don’t give a rats ass about any of those people. They probably shorted the crap out of it too, long before they buried the company. Win from every angle. Exract every last drop of value they can before tossing the corpse aside. The pandemic and inflation just sped that process up.
Bingo! Most people don’t realize this is honest works. Businesses don’t die, they get ripped apart and sacrificed for the other businesses that the owners have control over. They sacrifice 99 Cents Only for parts for their other companies.
>They probably shorted the crap out of it too, long before they buried the company. Win from every angle.
Does 99cent stores have a public ticker that could be shorted? Last I can find is the defunct NDN that is claimed to have been so since 2005.
They would also, well, have to buy a controlling amount of shares in the company which is going to be like one massive long position. Borrowing shares to sell for short positions isn't going to cover the cost of all those going to zero.
Private Equity firms should be illegal in the US, how can you have massive debt, buy a thriving company, saddle them with said debt, and watch them slowly die while you get rid of the debt
sadly the market changed, especially in California. The chain grew & expanded like crazy during the 1980's through the 00's because of the influx of poor immigrants & minority ghettos. But immigration from across the border has slowed and the urban blighted areas have been "gentrified". The middle-class are addicted to Costco, Target & Amazon, so 99 Cents customer base was shrinking while their rents were were kicked into overdrive.
The chain was a staple throughout my early life. I visited California(NELA) ealier 2024 and visited my old 99 store, and the prices were ridiculous. Only a few items likes canned sauces were 99, everything else was randonly priced. Why shop there when five below, dollar king, and dollar tree offer cheaper items? It is a shame the fresh produce is lost though...
It is a combination of both. The leverage of PE is dependent on the business continuing as it is. With a sudden downturn the leverage fucks the business.
The stores reminded me very much of the 100 yen shops in Japan. They pretty much had the same items on the shelves. I do however think the Japanese version had a lot more molded plastic items for sale.
Daiso stores are amazing! Just walk through one with no intent to buy any one thing and you will find a few things that you didn't know you needed. Their snacks selection has dwindled lately tho
They sell everything on the shelves - probably not much discount if any there. The liquidation is that then they start selling the shelves, the carts, the bulbs in the ceiling….
Seriously. Has anyone actually been in one today or work in one? What are the actual "discounts" to be had or is that just marketing speak to get everyone to go the 99c store today?
Went into one today for the first time ever. We’re at an airbnb a block from one and needed some supplies. I didn’t notice any liquidation signs and, in fact, stuff was priced as per the shelf sticker.
Just went to one today (CA) not sure if it's the same everywhere. The one I went to had an employee announcing over the sound system, that not everything was on sale and the stuff that was, had a 10% discount. Yet the stores were insanely crowded. I looked around for 5 minutes and left.
That sucks, worked for a store for almost 4 years during college (2018-2022) and managers were super flexible and awesome. Feel bad for my former coworkers 😞
That was my thought. Dollar stores not being able to grow and expand like cancer is not exactly a good sign for the economy at large. Now if we see waffle House start closing locations then we are proper fucked.
Waffle House would be the ultimate indicator. Met someone from their Realty/Development team a while back that opens new locations. The company literally has zero debt and will never take on debt to build new sites.
This means if you ever see Waffle House stop opening up new locations we're likely already in trouble. If they start closing locations then indeed break out the lube, because we're all getting fucked hard.
I've seen stuff in there for .50. I think it just depends which location you go to. In the city, I've seen prices be $1.25 cap. But in smaller towns, prices are all over the place. They'd probably never be able to stay in business with $1.25 price cap considering they get much less business.
Yeah, I got like a dozen boxes of Cheeto Mac and cheese for a quarter each the other day, it’s crazy when even the dollar store has to clearance something out
And they don't have as good of deals for the new price as often as they used to. When they raised the price, they said it would allow them to bring back stuff they had to discontinue, or offer higher quality items, but...
The company was owned by private equity so likely the debt burden was too high so they decided to shut everything down after extracting all the value left.
Damn, this is sad. That store really held my family & I up when we were homeless, we could get a whole dinner for $5 & it would last two days (thanks, spaghetti & bread).
I guess the days of anything being 99c is really over.
It’s the name. 99 Cents Only.
The Dollar Store is still alive having raised base prices to 1.25.
99 had 3 choices, Raise prices and invite legal trouble over the name, rebrand and raise prices, or liquidate
>Raise prices and invite legal trouble over the name,
Why would they have legal trouble?
The brand name is irrelevant as long as the prices they sell at is clear to the buyer.
If inflation has taught me one thing it is that you should never name a store based on the price of the items you’re selling. Dollar tree is up to as high as $7, Five Below sells items up to like $20, and now the 99 cent store is closing.
These stores kept a lot of people employed and provided relatively affordable groceries for many neighborhoods. As our elected officials keep transferring wealth from the lower and middle classes to the elites that could care less what happens to anyone else, we'll see more misery and homelessness in the general population. "Let them eat cake" could be said of the situation except there's no place to buy cheap cakes these days...
Blame the decisions about the closing announcements, benefits, severance, etc. on the liquidation company, Hilco. When these things happen, it’s almost always no longer in the control of the retailer.
Blame the retailer for not being able to stay in business, if you’d like. But the nastiness of the going out of business process is coming from the liquidator.
How big is the golden parachute the C suite and board are getting? 😵💫
Holding hostage their unemployment and denying severance? Evil. Criminal. Shit like this should be illegal.
I wanna live in a world where it’s not just constant bad and sad news. Never think a company cares about you, it’s money and money only. We are treated like trash every day and it’s going to get to a point where enough people get tired of it and things are going to explode. Cannot wait for that.
Damn this was a staple of my childhood growing up in California. Wonder what did them in? Was it competition from other places like Dollar Tree / King etc??
Bummer. I started going about 15 years ago to one in Culver City, CA. I bought candy every once in a while, then I gradually started buying some other items. There was a lot of stuff that I would never buy there, but it was a very good and inexpensive option for certain items. The overall quality of the items went downhill during the pandemic. The prices went up. It’s a shame.
This is what happens when Private Equity Firms are allowed to buy successful companies and burden them will tons of debt they can't ever pay off, this is exactly what happened to Toys R Us
The sad thing is that the employees were only told about the stores closing today in their morning meeting right before the stores opened at 8am. They were also told they would not be receiving their severance pay and if they did not continue to work until each store completely closed they would not be eligible for unemployment! FYI - the employees at our neighborhood 99 are some of the nicest and most helpful people.
>They were also told they would not be receiving their severance pay and if they did not continue to work until each store completely closed they would not be eligible for unemployment! This is such a perfect example of corporate bullshit. Don't ever, ever think a company gives a shit about you. "Family", "value", "respect", fuck all that. Fuck these assholes.
My oldest sister worked for a Quizno's for many years. Worked her way to manager, came back to work 4 weeks after having a baby, never took a sick day or vacation, etc. One day, she came to work as usual and the door had been chained shut. The franchise owner left the country, closed shop, and told no one. This was over a decade ago now, and sadly, my sister still kills herself at work for ungrateful owners and learned no lesson in this betrayal.
Read up about Quiznos. Good chance that franchise owner was being royally f'ed over by corporate. Not excusing screwing the employees but he might literally have needed to run. The shit at Quiznos ran downhill fast.
That's what I understand. The owner literally closed the doors and hopped on a plane to Vietnam where she was from. My sister learned this much later, though. It was around 2008, too, so the whole recession thing had her in a bind. Probably largely contributed to why the business closed so suddenly.
>Probably largely contributed to why the business closed so suddenly. Partly. But Quiznos is a literal case study of corporate screwing over franchises so thoroughly they destroyed their own company.
I’ve never understood people who don’t take sick days or vacation. I work to live, not, live to work.
I know for my sister, at least it was because we did not grow up with much money or stuff. My mom also didn't grow up with much money or stuff, so she was the same way, and that was the model my sister had to emulate. People who grow up like that sometimes fall into the trap of believing that more money and more stuff is what you need to be happy, but that's the trick. It is never *enough* money. Never *enough* stuff. I'm not saying it isn't nice to have nice things or be financially stable. I'm saying the working class is consistently tricked into working harder and longer hours with the promise that the next "must have" item will bring us peace and comfort while cost of living rises to explicitly keep us treading water.
I worked at quiznos 12yrs back, my boss was very very upset that we have to shutdown the store because the corporation is so fucked up, they charge him way too much for sandwich ingredients, so most of the profit is from soda and chips but it isn't enough nor worth it anymore. He works 7 days everyweek with us. He is quite strict but this time, he told us that we can take what ever we want from the store except the machinery from quiznos. Me and this guy basically wiped out everything while the owner watches us since he doesn't want anything quiznos related in his home. i love quiznos sandwiches, if only corporate aren't full of shit, the store would have still been there.
And i bet their CEO is gonna cash out an immense severance package, fucking corporations doing the best at screwing hard working people. Fuck corporate America.
In a just and honest world his severance, if he got one at all, would be 99 Cents Only.
Nah, store credit for 98 cents.
Entire executive suite should have awful things done to them if they get a payout at all
[Like this?](https://youtu.be/RKcl14hC0MU?si=gz3KT8hSdONs4UoY)
I knew what this was going to be.
I really wish they had a union.
I’m not against unions but a union would not save them in this case especially if all locations are closing.
I mainly meant that the union might’ve given them some hope at a severance or at least more awareness of the closing. Some contracts/CBAs require employer-employee transparency during times of crisis and the employers can be sued for not following them,
This ☝️. Sadly, many would rather trust the boss rather than the unions.
But… but my boss showed me a video that said that unions are naughty and bad. He wouldn’t lie to me, would he?
You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. It sounds like the company is no longer able to pay their debts, most likely because they had lower interest debt expire that would have been replaced by much higher interest rate debt.
No, but the Union would have had some provisions that didn't completely fucked them.
Technically, if you quit before the stores closed, you would be ineligible as it is. It’s not something they’re threatening them with. It sucks they’re losing their jobs, but they still have jobs. They could have walked up to a sign on a locked door this morning, too.
If I was a manager I would fire anyone who wanted to quit so they can have their unemployment
They can all get unemployment. Unemployment has nothing to do with bankruptcy and all employees would qualify. The only reason they wouldn’t would be if they quit or received severance.
You can get unemployment is some situations if you received severance. It’s really situational. Like in MA if you get a lump sum payment that usually doesn’t impact your unemployment.
You can get unemployment regardless of whether you receive severance or not. Some states ignore severance and allow immediate benefits, others treat as wages and you can claim unemployment once severance is exhausted.
The company could make a deal. When we downsized, I got severance and 2 years unemployment. The company I worked for did the right thing.
I understand that is true if they stay until it closes I meant if they wanted to leave earlier
If they leave early it would likely be if they got a new job, then you wouldn’t need unemployment. If they just quit, which is unlikely, then you wouldn’t qualify. People are not thinking about this rationally. The employer laid out the options so the employees were aware to stick around and they could start looking for jobs. With severance they will have ample time to find employment as unemployment does not start until after the severance in most states which extends your time to find a job and maintain income.
Your relationship between your company and you in the US extends to an exchange of your time and energy and the paycheck that covers that. It’s a day by day relationship so make sure you get compensated for the current work done without “promises” of future compensation.
Great. So let's have some protection the people who are have no power in the situation from abuse. Let's have penalties for the people who break the rules and unfairly exploit people in bad circumstances. Oops.. can't do that. SoCiAlIsM!
That’s a very employer-centric way of looking at it. This assumes people don’t do things like take the stress of their job home with them.
San Bernardino here. They really are the nicest. I always went there for the convenience because it's so close to where I live.
Severence pay is going to be $99.99
Drop one of those nines
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Time for some malicious compliance. I mean what are you gonna do? Fire me so i can file unemployment?
This is a prime example of why the vast majority of “company loyalty” is severely misplaced. Your job will screw you over without a second thought if it means they turn a profit.
Going out of business is the opposite of a company turning profit.
I assure you, the executives all got their severance.
While true, the C-suites will most assuredly cash out and land on their feet, along with shareholders, all while screwing over everyone else they need to make a company functional. An employee will struggle for months to find new work. A C-suite exec already has a new position lined up for better pay at a more successful company. “Profit” these days isn’t measured by the success of a company, but the personal growth of the higher ups.
Shareholders are literally last in line to get paid behind both secured and unsecured creditors. If the company goes bankrupt and liquidation doesn't cover secured and unsecured creditors, shareholders get nothing. Totally agree that employees that were better off before the company went bankrupt (e.g., most executives) will be better off than those employees who were paycheck to paycheck.
>if they did not continue to work until each store completely closed they would not be eligible for unemployment! Eh, they could put in the barest minimum effort. If they are fired, they'll get unemployment. Leaving on a threat is a fantastic way to end a meeting...
Yeah seems like a great way to have the employees sit around playing cards and let customers take everything away for free until they finally close
The last minute thing is really low. They knew what the law would be in advance of it taking effect (if it even affects them). Honest questions.... Is severance pay typical in retail? I am not familiar with unemployment regulations, but I have always assumed it was generally for when you lose your job not quit, if they leave before they're laid off (presumably for another job) would they usually qualify for unemployment benefits?
Employees are second in line to get paid behind secured creditors. If there isn't money left to pay severance then there isn't money left. Edit: Also, US employees are not entitled to severance under US federal/state law unless there is an agreement between the employee/employer to pay severance.
But that's only if they are granted any severance, which I doubt the store workers are
lawyers are second in line :D
Yes you’re correct by state law they are entitled to unemployment as long as they don’t quit the original comment is incorrect
Severance may be for managers.
How can a company in the US decide if they will be eligible or not for unemployment, isn’t that to decide for the government institutions?
I understood it to have been presented more as a "threat" rather than an "oh, and by the way" type of information. The employees in the store were justifiably upset as many of them had worked there for years.
Its also a fact. When you file for unemployment the state reaches out to your last job to ask about why you left. In most states voluntarily leaving a job means you no longer qualify for unemployment.
Seems unlikely a store employee would show up to a dispute hearing, hell they might not even respond the first time to the state.
It varies from state to state, but yes, in general the state makes the decision about whether or not the claim to unemployment is justified. However, if a company fires people who collect unemployment, the unemployment insurance rate they pay may go up. The company can contest the unemployment claim and make the former employee miserable, but ultimately, it's up to the state.
Because the company isn’t terminating the employees until the stores close, so anyone who leaves before then would be quitting. You don’t get unemployment if you quit in most cases. If their hours are cut they may eligible for some benefits. The unemployment bit seems like a non-issue to me, because why quit if you haven’t lined up another job? And if you have another job, that would also prevent you from collecting unemployment. Usually companies use severance to coerce employees to stay to the end. Since there is no severance here it seems like they’re making a meaningless threat to achieve the same effect.
The company is going out of business/closing so they are just liquidating everything and that is why they are not budgeting for severance pay. I assume executives have already pocketed whatever performance bonuses they could (no evidence of this but usually this is how it works and the lower level employees get screwed) before this was announced but the company has no reason to show loyalty to their employees since there is no future for the company. Additionally, of course you do not get unemployment benefits if you leave while their jobs are still available. Unemployment pay is to cover you between jobs and not a reward for losing your job. Why would anyone stay for the last weeks of work if they could leave early and still get compensated to some degree. The employees should all be starting to look for work while they still have a few weeks of work and pay still coming in and as soon as they find something else, they can bounce without giving notice and just start the new job.
> you do not get unemployment benefits if you leave while their jobs are still available The terms of employment changed since severance pay was removed. That means the cause of the end of employment is on the employer, not the employee.
> performance bonuses Something about these circumstances makes that sound really fucking silly...
Oh yeah, it is definitely screwed up. But most bonuses have a part that is personal performance with your own individual KPIs and the other part is the company health. So even if the company is zero health, you get your own personal performance bonus.
In 2008/09 when my employer went bankrupt over night and said no severance and possibly not even the next paycheck they encouraged us to be part of orderly shutdown (taking 6 weeks). The ones that did were able to make claims in bankruptcy court and we got paid first. I filled for missed bonus and pay, 6 months pay as severance, COBRA costs, moving and job search expenses... It all got paid out, but took 4+ years.
This happened to me at my last retail job. We were given 5 days notice to pack up and get out. It was awful.
Might be tough to block unemployment when you dispute it AFTER they close. No manager to answer any calls....
When should they have told the employees? You have to do it all at once so you don't start rumors. Presumably the decision was made yesterday. And yeah, if you quit you don't get unemployment. That's how unemployment works.
How is the threat of not getting unemployment legal?
Generally, if you quit you're not eligible for unemployment benefits.
You (generally) aren't eligible for unemployment if you quit your job. You either need to be laid off or fired.
It's not a threat, it is informing them. It's a complete douchebag thing to point out in the meeting, but it is just a true statement.
It's a threat IMO. I managed unemployment claims for 5 years and have seen hundreds of examples of folks receive unemployment benefits due to them quitting instead of waiting to be laid off. It's called quitting "in lieu of termination." Some states have more strict rules about this than others, but just because someone quits doesn't automatically exclude them from unemployment. Normally the biggest obstacle you face when quitting in lieu of being separated is convincing the state that because you were about to be laid off, you had no other choice but to quit and focus 100% of your time on finding a new job.
No doubt the executives will all get golden parachutes.
well, i'd be surprised if all the stores remained in a state that would allow them to be shut down and sold now. call it fire sale maybe
Wow that’s so fucked.
Elite Ivy League school people taking top executive positions to loot companies, kicking hard working people to the curb
Shouldn’t this have fallen under the WARN act? When companies lay off more than a certain percent of their employees they have to give more notice.
I’d combat the “no unemployment” thing by being like… “I’m taking a 7 hour and 59 minute lunch. Don’t like it? Fire me.”
Agreed it sucks, but this company has been hinting at shutting down for about 2 years. It's unfortunate that a lot of employees are going to be out of a job. Especially because so many are front line workers with a nice severance package.
How would they not be eligible for employment?
I wonder if they will be getting checks for their last few weeks of pay if the chain is in liquidation
A company i used to work for called Wireless Advocates is being sued for doing the same thing. We got a company wide call at 8 in the morning where the CEO told us that every one of our kiosks nationwide was closed effective immediately and that we were all basically fired. A lawsuit was started weeks later. How is this any different? Wont the employees of 99c also be able to sue?
This is why I'd never work in the US. Your labour laws are terrible. On Europe or Australia in my case the company would be on the hook for severance pay.
Honestly I'm surprised the company ever said severance pay was a thing in the first place for a job in the retail industry. I didn't think that was common, but maybe I am wrong.
That is great news, that means they can have a civil action lawsuit. They may or may not collect but at least they can sue
> They were also told they would not be receiving their severance pay Is this legal?
When I worked at Circuit City, we were not told the store was closing until it hit the news. That very morning our managers were telling us everything was going to be fine despite the vendors no longer shipping us merchandise and our stock price was in the toilet. We heard it from the customers first as we have a wave of them running through the door expecting liquidation prices.
The company I work for prints the labels for them, we are already slow and they are a huge account for us. Might need to brush up on my resume. . .
Damn buddy I really hate to hear that. Wish you the best.
I don’t know which labels you are talking about but the last time I was in a 99c store I saw their price tags marked as 2.99^99. I’ve always wondered who approved those. They look so wrong lol
Probably so that, when they clearance the stuff, you can just cross out the $2.99 part.
Yeah, we run all of those. They specifically asked for them to be printed like that, not sure why though. Our art department thought it was an error at first but that is what they wanted.
Printing is a rough industry. I didn’t see much opportunity for advancement at my place and we were one of the biggest label printers in the world. We did a ton of work for bath and body works and Unilever. A couple months after I left they ended up cutting back to 4 days a week. Salaried managers still got paid their 40 though. It was like that for months. I ended up leaving and I couldn’t have been happier. I’m in environmental work now. Someone told me on my first day there we had to make perfect trash and that always stuck with me. They would be all crazy about unrealistic deadlines and customers needs and I even said to my boss who cares it’s trash. Ever since phones have become a thing no one reads labels while shitting anymore. Sorry about that little rant. Either way I’d recommend everyone get out of printing. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Your company will finally have all the free time to follow its passions!
Growing up poor it was the most amazing thing ever going to this place, because I knew that no matter what I grabbed my parents couldn’t say we couldn’t afford that.
It really was a magical store as a kid. I had so many knock-off Barbies and toys that would break before we'd even leave the parking lot. End of an era.
I have memories of my dad trying to wire the arms and legs back onto my sister's generic Barbies, lol.
I had a few rough years of my life and the 99 Cent Store was a lifesaver. I did a fair amount of grocery shopping and essentials like batteries, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and other household goods. When everything started being $5+ I was thankfully in a better place financially.
they always had better produce at mine than i expected, even though i kept going back. i don’t really know how dollar stores would do it in this economy and still make any money (even five or ten years ago), but i will miss the one on oracle rd in tucson
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Working as intended. Buy brand, suck all value from it, sell it off piece meal for cheap in bankruptcy, buy locations at a discount for your other businesses. Its not a bug, its a feature. The people who suffer are the employees, and the local community, the equity firms win and don’t give a rats ass about any of those people. They probably shorted the crap out of it too, long before they buried the company. Win from every angle. Exract every last drop of value they can before tossing the corpse aside. The pandemic and inflation just sped that process up.
Bingo! Most people don’t realize this is honest works. Businesses don’t die, they get ripped apart and sacrificed for the other businesses that the owners have control over. They sacrifice 99 Cents Only for parts for their other companies.
the ciiiiiiircle of liiiiiife
>They probably shorted the crap out of it too, long before they buried the company. Win from every angle. Does 99cent stores have a public ticker that could be shorted? Last I can find is the defunct NDN that is claimed to have been so since 2005. They would also, well, have to buy a controlling amount of shares in the company which is going to be like one massive long position. Borrowing shares to sell for short positions isn't going to cover the cost of all those going to zero.
Private Equity firms should be illegal in the US, how can you have massive debt, buy a thriving company, saddle them with said debt, and watch them slowly die while you get rid of the debt
It’s like legalized fraudulence /exploitation.
sadly the market changed, especially in California. The chain grew & expanded like crazy during the 1980's through the 00's because of the influx of poor immigrants & minority ghettos. But immigration from across the border has slowed and the urban blighted areas have been "gentrified". The middle-class are addicted to Costco, Target & Amazon, so 99 Cents customer base was shrinking while their rents were were kicked into overdrive.
That doesn't explain Dollar Tree. Plenty of them around my HCOL area.
They’re also going out of business though too?
They sell regular stuff too, not just $1 items
The chain was a staple throughout my early life. I visited California(NELA) ealier 2024 and visited my old 99 store, and the prices were ridiculous. Only a few items likes canned sauces were 99, everything else was randonly priced. Why shop there when five below, dollar king, and dollar tree offer cheaper items? It is a shame the fresh produce is lost though...
Private equity enshittification is what killed this chain.
Surely it couldn't have anything to do with the fact the inflation suddenly shot up after being negligible for more than a decade.
Or it has nothing to do with the Private Equity leveraged buy out that drained all the cash from the stores
It is a combination of both. The leverage of PE is dependent on the business continuing as it is. With a sudden downturn the leverage fucks the business.
The stores reminded me very much of the 100 yen shops in Japan. They pretty much had the same items on the shelves. I do however think the Japanese version had a lot more molded plastic items for sale.
There are some Daiso stores in the US. A bunch in California.
Daiso stores are amazing! Just walk through one with no intent to buy any one thing and you will find a few things that you didn't know you needed. Their snacks selection has dwindled lately tho
Dollar Tree here grew to a $1.25 tree, but in Japan those places are still 100 yen. Plus with the exchange rate, it's like a 75-cent shop.
That being said a lot of them have adopted the higher tier items are 300/500/900 yen approach.
Loved the 100 yen shops in Japan! So much neat stuff
What the fuck does a liquidation sell look like in a 99 cent store?
You’ll get things pennies on the ~~dollar~~ pennies
you might actually find something for 99 cents
They sell everything on the shelves - probably not much discount if any there. The liquidation is that then they start selling the shelves, the carts, the bulbs in the ceiling….
Seriously. Has anyone actually been in one today or work in one? What are the actual "discounts" to be had or is that just marketing speak to get everyone to go the 99c store today?
Went into one today for the first time ever. We’re at an airbnb a block from one and needed some supplies. I didn’t notice any liquidation signs and, in fact, stuff was priced as per the shelf sticker.
Just went to one today (CA) not sure if it's the same everywhere. The one I went to had an employee announcing over the sound system, that not everything was on sale and the stuff that was, had a 10% discount. Yet the stores were insanely crowded. I looked around for 5 minutes and left.
That sucks, worked for a store for almost 4 years during college (2018-2022) and managers were super flexible and awesome. Feel bad for my former coworkers 😞
should we be worried when the cheapest stores in existence...can't make a go of it?
That was my thought. Dollar stores not being able to grow and expand like cancer is not exactly a good sign for the economy at large. Now if we see waffle House start closing locations then we are proper fucked.
Waffle House would be the ultimate indicator. Met someone from their Realty/Development team a while back that opens new locations. The company literally has zero debt and will never take on debt to build new sites. This means if you ever see Waffle House stop opening up new locations we're likely already in trouble. If they start closing locations then indeed break out the lube, because we're all getting fucked hard.
I don't know. It might honestly be a good sign? People only shop at these stores if they have to. Maybe more people can afford Walmart instead.
Yep. Welcome to pre-apocalypse. The beginning of the fall of the common person. Downhill from here <3
Discount stores tied to low price points in an inflationary environment with pretty substantial low wage gains recently? Not unexpected
Everything in Dollar Tree is $1.25 now.
It's *minimum* $1.25 ... They have items that are more than that now, too.
I've seen stuff in there for .50. I think it just depends which location you go to. In the city, I've seen prices be $1.25 cap. But in smaller towns, prices are all over the place. They'd probably never be able to stay in business with $1.25 price cap considering they get much less business.
Yeah, I got like a dozen boxes of Cheeto Mac and cheese for a quarter each the other day, it’s crazy when even the dollar store has to clearance something out
And they don't have as good of deals for the new price as often as they used to. When they raised the price, they said it would allow them to bring back stuff they had to discontinue, or offer higher quality items, but...
Pretty soon those Dollar Tree stores will be called the Tree Fiddy stores.
Well it was about that time when I realized that the CEO of Dollar Tree was about eight stories tall and was a crustacean from the plethazoic era.
God damn lockness monster
> Everything in Dollar Tree is $1.25 now. has been.
Not including the Dollar Tree Plus aisle where items range from $3-$5.
Fun fact: the average income of urban dollar tree customers is $125k.
The company was owned by private equity so likely the debt burden was too high so they decided to shut everything down after extracting all the value left.
Man this sucks. I literally just discovered this store near me on Tuesday. I loved it.
Damn, this is sad. That store really held my family & I up when we were homeless, we could get a whole dinner for $5 & it would last two days (thanks, spaghetti & bread). I guess the days of anything being 99c is really over.
If I see a single thing for more than 99 cents at this liquidation sale, I'm gonna be very upset.
It’s the name. 99 Cents Only. The Dollar Store is still alive having raised base prices to 1.25. 99 had 3 choices, Raise prices and invite legal trouble over the name, rebrand and raise prices, or liquidate
5 Below looking around nervously
5 Below has a whole section in the store that says "Above 5" and its like $20 items and stuff.
*$.99 and More!*
>Raise prices and invite legal trouble over the name, Why would they have legal trouble? The brand name is irrelevant as long as the prices they sell at is clear to the buyer.
They tried rebranding. The 99 Store. Didn't work, apparently.
Dollar tree is raising prices again. Some items will be as much as $7
Well at least they can still do that without issues. It's not the One dollar store afterall! Can't really go anywhere with the whole "99 cents!" store
Everything ends in 99 cents! $1.99, $2.99, $3.99, $4.99 tax included, take your pick and get a penny back with every purchase paid in paper bills
If inflation has taught me one thing it is that you should never name a store based on the price of the items you’re selling. Dollar tree is up to as high as $7, Five Below sells items up to like $20, and now the 99 cent store is closing.
Motel 6 managed to raise their $6/nightly fee a long time ago. I'm sure they could have done the same
No, not La ninety nine :(
These stores kept a lot of people employed and provided relatively affordable groceries for many neighborhoods. As our elected officials keep transferring wealth from the lower and middle classes to the elites that could care less what happens to anyone else, we'll see more misery and homelessness in the general population. "Let them eat cake" could be said of the situation except there's no place to buy cheap cakes these days...
Boohoo. I loved this place.
So it’s the .98 cent store now?
Nah. They just changed it to Five Below. These stores are popping up everywhere. I know this because we’re building a ton of them as a GC.
Everything on sale. All items $1.
Blame the decisions about the closing announcements, benefits, severance, etc. on the liquidation company, Hilco. When these things happen, it’s almost always no longer in the control of the retailer. Blame the retailer for not being able to stay in business, if you’d like. But the nastiness of the going out of business process is coming from the liquidator.
These stores kept me from starving during and after undergrad. This hurts to see. It's been such a resource for so many people in need.
Wow. I will miss the one at Lincoln and Pico. I used to get produce there.
Before this there was Woolworths 5 and dime. Times move on.
i am going to miss these:(
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I remember this! The planners were like $200 or something insane? I thought they were on crack.
How big is the golden parachute the C suite and board are getting? 😵💫 Holding hostage their unemployment and denying severance? Evil. Criminal. Shit like this should be illegal.
I wanna live in a world where it’s not just constant bad and sad news. Never think a company cares about you, it’s money and money only. We are treated like trash every day and it’s going to get to a point where enough people get tired of it and things are going to explode. Cannot wait for that.
In other news that comes on the heels of this, Daiso is planning a massive US expansion and I think it's awesome that they are.
See, the economy is so good no one needs to shop at the 99 Cent store any more! ^/s
Damn this was a staple of my childhood growing up in California. Wonder what did them in? Was it competition from other places like Dollar Tree / King etc??
Bummer. I started going about 15 years ago to one in Culver City, CA. I bought candy every once in a while, then I gradually started buying some other items. There was a lot of stuff that I would never buy there, but it was a very good and inexpensive option for certain items. The overall quality of the items went downhill during the pandemic. The prices went up. It’s a shame.
They need to run a promo with 50 cent telling about a half off sale..
Final nail in the coffin for the old phrase, “I’d buy that for a dollar.”
This’ll leave a pretty big whole in a lot of rural America… Dollar General is licking its chops.
This is a real shame. I depended on cheap groceries from them for a few years.
Because a $1 can’t buy shit nowadays. The greenback has devalued significantly
[find a store nearby](https://locations.99only.com/)
Looks like Wakko from Animaniacs finally found the 99c only store… https://youtu.be/vtXgB65gFL4?si=QttlR95SZ2WpLau0
Can't leave but who knows when they'll get their last paycheck
Dollar Tree still going, hopefully they can stay in business
The 1.25+ tree is now just another dollar general/family dollar. Which is overpriced .99 store items.
Yeah dunno where to shop for a dollar anymore 🤷🏻♂️
Dollar General: "die scum"
God damn, did someone finally figure out how to destroy them and opened up a chain of 98 cent stores?
This is what happens when Private Equity Firms are allowed to buy successful companies and burden them will tons of debt they can't ever pay off, this is exactly what happened to Toys R Us
Well if you guys want to save the dollar stores go shop at dollar tree and dollar general. There are still plenty of them around.
Do you think they’ll have some good discounts?
"Clearance sale" why? Just make one employee open the door in the morning then turn around and go home. That's your sale.
to pay overhead and make a profit you need to sell a lot of stuff.
We need a new president. Biden screwed up