Tommy Hilfiger Company Pulls A Circuit City, Firing Workers To Slash Pay

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/5935

Tommy Hilfiger Company Pulls A Circuit City, Firing Workers To Slash Pay - 05/17/07

Following a growing trend, the Tommy Hilfiger company has fired high paid workers and replaced them with lower paid workers. Jesse Russell reports:

On Thursday, janitors contracted to clean the offices for the Tommy Hilfiger company found that they had been fired and replaced. The workers, who make on average $19 per hour, were let go by the Hilfiger company in exchange for a contractor who pays employees $8 per hour for the same work. The Hilfiger company was acquired by private equity firm Apax Partners last year for $1.54 billion. Tommy Hilfiger will make $14.5 million a year until 2010 off of the deal – on top of his share of the company worth $66 million. Apax purchased the brand as it was on a decline and losing favor as a popular brand. The firing of the higher paid workers in exchange for cheaper workers echoes a similar decision by Circuit City last month the electronics retailer fired the top-earning 9 percent of their workforce in exchange for lower paid new hires. Additionally, the move by Hilfiger as controlled by a private equity firm reflects concerns expressed by workers at Chrysler – a company that announced this week that it would be sold to private equity firm Cerberus.

AUDIO story here: http://www.laborradio.org/files/lo/winsheadlines.ram

[rpannier]

1. This crap is killing America

It only benefits the upper 0.5%