Solyndra says it did not have to warn its workers

[n2doc]

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, September 3, 2011


The abrupt collapse of solar company Solyndra on Wednesday came without warning - and without WARN, a state and federal law requiring advance notice of a large layoff or shutdown.

But the Fremont company most likely was exempt from notifying its 900 full-time and 200 contract workers ahead of time under a loophole in the law, officially known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act.

"Because we were actively seeking funding and hoping to avoid this up until the last minute, we didn't file WARN until we knew (that shutdown was inevitable), which was pretty much simultaneous to the announcement," said Dave Miller, a Solyndra spokesman.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/02/BUJG1KVJ26.DTL

This was just a badly run company.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Harmony Blue]

2. They couldn't compete with Chinese government backed solar panels

I wonder when will Americans wake up to the Green revolution that is taken the rest of the globe by storm?

[amborin]

4. also sagging demand & a unique and expensive manufacturing process

[FarCenter]

3. They were producing very unusual solar panels

CIGS deposited on the ouside of one glass tube which was then inserted in another glass tube. The finished tubes were laid parallel in nonstandard size panels.

http://www.solyndra.com/technology-products/cylindrical-module/

Being privately held, there doesn't seem to be any publically available financial data on the company.

[snagglepuss]

5. So who is on the hook hor the $535 million dollar loan guarantee? Any idea

how much money the govt will lose?

[galileoreloaded]

6. Well, its the .gov, so double the $535 M, add 20 M for legal fees.....sound right....n/t

[FarCenter]

7. Taxpayers Rank Behind Solyndra Investors Under Obama Refinancing

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-03/taxypayers-rank-behind-solyndra-s-investors-under-obama-refinancing-deal.html

It looks like most will be unrecoverable by the Federal government, since the government money is subordinate to the $75 million put in by private investors last January. The liquidation value of Solyndra is unlikely to be very great.

[snagglepuss]

8. If private companies are willing to accept public money than the should be

forced to open their books to the public. In situations like this do company owners profit in any way or are these situations simply a windfall for the banks?

[FarCenter]

9. I doubt that any banks would be involved.

The private funding appears to be from venture funds and the George Kaiser Foundation, named after a politically connected individual. If any banks were involved, it would be an investment bank, rather than a commercial bank, and then trough its venture equity department.