Laying Off Friends, Hoping to Offer a ‘Welcome Back’
Some days only one or two show up. Other days there are so many he has to see them in strained, 20-minute sessions that stretch all day long.
Since Sept. 11, 255 workers have been tapped on the shoulder by a supervisor on the floor of the giant kitchen near the airport and told: Report to Human Resources.
In his office, Ramsey Salomon waits for them, knowing they know what’s coming. Before handing them the formal letter, he explains in simple terms that they are no longer needed.
“I try,” he says, “to soften the blow.”
Salomon, 37, is the human relations manager for Gate Gourmet, one of the two largest suppliers of airline meals. Fewer people are flying, and many airlines have cut back or ended meal service. That has forced Gate Gourmet to cut production at its two Los Angeles kitchens by almost 50%.
Salomon gets the flight schedules from the airlines a week or two in advance, then calculates the number of workers he’ll need. For each flight eliminated, 10 people will lose their jobs. He draws the names from a seniority list. Most recently, he had to let go employees who had been with the company for five years.
They’re low- to medium-wage earners. They slice meat, assemble fruit into plastic boxes, bag ice, stack canned drinks in carts, wash pots and pans, drive trucks. They wear hospital-style gowns and plastic caps.
From their files, Salomon draws a deeper picture of who they are. About half are women. Some have double incomes by marriage, others work two jobs to get by. Most are single parents.
Animated and gregarious by nature, Salomon thinks of them all as family. He dresses in the same casual clothes as the workers and easily mixes with them on the job.
He was trained to handle terminations with dignity by minimizing emotion. But nothing prepared him for this. He has seen employees cry, go blank with shock and burst into anger. He has cried himself.
There’s a routine that gets him through it.
“We have to secure badges. We have to get time cards,” he says. “We have to get uniforms. We have to get their paycheck. We notify the Teamsters union. We also give them a reference letter that the general manager signs. We give them a number to the unemployment office.”
Before they leave, he places their uniforms and ID badges in a plastic bag. They’ll get them back when times are better and rehiring begins, he tells them.
But, so far, when they’ve come around, the news has rarely been good.
“They show up,” he says. “They want to know how things are going: ‘Do you have a couple hours for me?’ ”
Salomon would dearly like to say: “Come back tomorrow. This is going to be great. We’re going to have a Christmas party.”
He can’t. “No. That’s not going to happen,” he acknowledges. “We’re in trouble financially.”
Like everyone else, Salomon is looking for a positive sign, but he sees only ambiguity.
“We get double messages,” he says. “We hear that things are getting back to where they were before Sept. 11. Then we hear Delta is going to cancel flights. It’s that feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow that’s killing us.”
His blood pressure has been acting up. “I have to go to the doctor and get extra medication for this,” he says. “There is only so much your body can take.”
