200-Employee Firm Closes Without Notice

Camarillo officials said Thursday that they were stunned to learn that a local telephone service center had abruptly shut down this week without any advance warning to its 200 employees or the city, as required by law.

Assistant City Manager Robert Westdyke said Emergency Road Services, part of a nationwide network that contracts with automakers and credit card firms to dispatch aid to stranded motorists, closed its offices early Wednesday.

“My understanding is that employees showed up to work and were told the doors were closed,” Westdyke said. “There was no warning. That’s regrettable.”

Representatives for the company, which relocated to Camarillo from Thousand Oaks three years ago, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Nor have they contacted city officials, Westdyke said.

A former company supervisor, however, spoke with Westdyke and told him that “he had not been aware or told by upper management that this was in the works. He had no idea.”

Under federal law, companies with 100 or more full-time employees are required to give 60 days’ notice of closing to workers and to the city or county where they are located, Westdyke said. There are exceptions to the law, such “as unforeseeable business circumstances,” but it is not clear if that is the case here, he said.

Westdyke said it’s possible the city could seek relief through the courts on behalf of the workers. If found in violation of the law, he said, the company could be liable for 60 days of pay for employees and face a separate civil penalty.

But Westdyke said it was premature to say what action, if any, the city would take.

Theresa Salazar Vital, administrator of the county’s Rapid Response program, which helps workers affected by downsizing or layoffs, said company officials inquired about her agency’s services three months ago. But, she said, there was no further contact.

“It sounds like a situation where they needed to take immediate action,” Salazar Vital said. “It’s unfortunate when it happens this way. But, in general, it’s expensive to do business in California.”

She said that, ideally, her office -- part of the federally funded Workforce Investment Board system -- sends a team to a work site to counsel employees facing layoffs to inform them of the agency’s job placement and retraining programs.

Salazar Vital said her agency could assist former employees of the Camarillo company. The agency can be reached at 652-7866.

Meanwhile, Jim Jevens, the city’s economic development consultant, said that officials from two local companies had inquired about how to get in touch with former Emergency Road Services workers.

“While it’s a bummer,” Jevens said about the company’s closing, “less than 24 hours later, the heart of the community is coming forward.”