MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — Former employees of a Milledgeville food packaging company say almost 40 people there haven't been paid in nearly a month.
The company, FoodService Partners, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy last month and the Milledgeville office closed its doors last Friday.
13WMAZ’s Jessica Cha spoke with some workers about the situation, and with someone who can explain more about what happened.
Carlton Freeman worked with Food Service Partners for 2 years until last Friday.
“I'm angry about it, and I want my money,” he says.
Freeman says he liked his job as an inventory manager. He said his boss– Justin Bizzaro– told workers they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just a few weeks earlier.
"He told us they were doing that because there was a lot of product that the people hadn't paid for, and they were trying to come out from under that debt,” he says. “We were informed on the 21st that it would be our last day”.
Freeman says Bizzaro told people they could keep their keys and badges and come to work on a volunteer basis, but he wasn't sure when people would get paid.
“I was very confused and felt disrespected the way he went about telling us. We were all under the impression that the place was fine. So, I got to looking around at all these people, and I know there's a lot of single moms there. I know it's a lot of people who was trying to come up-- you know-- with this job and this kind of stuff, and get on their feet,” he explains.
Freeman says he asked Bizzaro if he knew when employees would be getting paid. He says Bizzaro told him that they should wait until Monday to see.
Freeman says that the whole week went by and they had not heard from Bizzaro or anyone from the company after that.
Shambria Coats is a single mother who worked at the FoodService Partners until recently. She says that she had quit her second job in order to devote herself fully to this one.
She says she wasn’t given a separation notice until this past Tuesday, so she kept going into work.
"I was afraid that if I didn't go, I would be terminated. No call, no show,” she says.
Coats says she began to get suspicious of the company when the service they used to keep track of their time clocked in stopped working 3 weeks ago.
“I’m one of the ones who did a big load of overtime. So, I’m wanting to see my hours because they gave us holidays off, but then they made us work on the holiday,” she explains. “So, if I’ve done all this, I need to see how many hours I’ve worked– how much money I’ve made because I am a single mother.”.
Coats says that with school starting again, she has no choice but to quickly find another job.
“Like I said, I’ve been getting help from a friend. It's been hard, but I made it happen for the kids,” she says.
Freeman and Coats say they haven't heard from Bizzaro or the company since last week. They’ve made contact with the Department of Labor and are getting help with unemployment.
The company's bankruptcy lawyer, Jack Shrum, says Food Service Partners parent company in California lost a main client.
He says that even though the office in Georgia was making profit, it got pulled into the bankruptcy filing along with their New York location. All 3 locations had to shut down.
However, Shrum says that "wages are considered a priority under the bankruptcy code, so I think there is a better than likely chance that they are going to get paid, if not in full, all of the past wages."
Shrum says as of this past Monday, FoodService Partners have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, meaning they are liquidating their assets.
He says that once they decide how to go forward with this liquidation, those profits will go to vendors first. Then, employees should be next on the list.
He says he does not know when employees will be paid.
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