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By JENN HENN; Times Leader Staff Writer
Monday, December 01, 1997 Page: 3A
DURYEA- Approximately 30 former Topps employees gathered Sunday in front of
the former Duryea plant wanting to know why they haven’t received their
severance checks yet.
“We call the union hall, and they say they don’t know. We call Topps in
Duryea, and they say they don’t know. We ask Duryea to give us Topps’ New York
phone number, and they say call the union hall,” said Mason Gribble, 57, a
former employee. “And these are the people in the office, and we thought they
were our friends.
“All we’re doing is playing cat-and-mouse, and all we want is our money
before Christmas.”
With some forced to put holiday shopping on hold, the former Topps workers
voiced concern as to when the company will forward settlement benefits to most
of the 577 workers displaced when the factory closed last December. A small
number of workers were reassigned to the company’s Scranton operation.
The $7 million settlement, reached in September, was signed only last
Tuesday by union and company officials.
“This should have been a cut and dry case,” said Mary Lou Gula, a former
employee who joined the protest Sunday. “We settled two months ago, and we
should have gotten our money by now.”
During the next couple of weeks, employees will be asked to sign releases
verifying their work history, Marty Appel, corporate director of public
relations for Topps, said in a recent interview.
As soon as those releases are signed and sent back to the company, the
former employees will receive their checks, Appel said.
“We’ve been hearing about those letters for the past two months,” said Gula
of Dupont. “The $6 million question is are we going to have our money for
Christmas?”
Probably not. Appel said he hoped employees would receive their checks by
year’s end.
Under the agreement, Topps will pay $6 million for lost wages incurred by
the closure and $1 million for unused vacation.
Employees with more than a year experience will receive $450 for each full
year of employment at the company. So an employee with 20 years experience
will receive a lump sum for $9,000.
The package represented a 20 percent increase from management’s earlier
offer.
Business editor Pamela C. Turfa and staff writer Steven Du Bois contributed
to this report.