Interconnection Products Closes, Laying Off 190 : Employment: Manufacturer of electronic connector devices abruptly shuts down. Workers say they were given no advance notice or severance pay.
Interconnection Products Inc., a manufacturer of electronic connector devices for the aerospace and computer industries, abruptly shut its doors Friday and laid off about 190 employees.
Phone calls to the company Monday were answered by a tape recording that said the company has ceased operations. The recording also said that the company’s bank has taken possession of the Santa Ana plant.
Several employees who lost their jobs said the company gave them no notice before Friday’s closing, or any severance pay. Some said they found the plant door padlocked when they went there to retrieve personal belongings.
“We weren’t told anything,” said one former employee who asked not to be identified.
The company is a subsidiary of Wearnes Technology, a unit of Wearnes Bros. Ltd., a large Singapore-based technology company that also owns majority stakes in Advanced Logic Research Inc., an Irvine computer maker, and MFlex, an Anaheim semiconductor parts company.
Lawrence Leong, a Wearnes official in San Jose, referred calls to the Singapore parent company, which did not immediately return calls for comment Monday.
In a letter to state employment officials, the company said Chase Manhattan Bank had ceased funding the company’s operations and was attempting to seize control of its assets. Chase Manhattan officials declined to comment.
Interconnection Products was losing money on annual revenue of about $27 million. Wearnes, which purchased the company about 18 months ago, was attempting to renegotiate its debt payments, a former company manager said.
The manager, who asked not to be identified, said Chase Manhattan was owed $9 million and was about to foreclose on the plant. Facing a Monday foreclosure deadline, Wearnes shut the plant during the weekend and removed much of the manufacturing equipment.
Wearnes officials told salaried employees on Friday that advance notice of the shutdown wasn’t required by law under a foreclosure proceeding.
Under the federal Worker Readjustment and Retraining Notification law, employers must give 60 days’ notice in the event of a plant closure or layoff involving more than 100 employees.
The phone message told employees to contact the California Employment Development Department if they had any questions about unemployment insurance, job training or other matters.
“Normally, companies contact us ahead of time,” said Norma Mejia, assistant manager of the EDD office in Santa Ana. “This company made no previous arrangements with us.”
