Reply #38: I'd like to hear more details about this shutdown before I form an opinion about who is

[bertman]

right and who is wrong.

On the one hand, you would think that the owners would know a few weeks in advance if they were in so much financial distress that they were going to have to close the doors, laying off hundreds of workers.

On the other hand, they may have waited until the last possible minute because they were hoping for an uptick in sales due to all of the money our government has been POURING into the financial sector hole. Being in the building business myself I know that many contractors are in dire straits but are hoping, hoping, hoping that the money will start to flow again and people will again buy homes.

Either way, it seems the owners should have had a better handle on the financial status of the company. It will be interesting to see what kind of serverance packages the upper level excecutives and management types got when this went down. If everyone took a big hit along with a lost job then I will feel more charitable toward the owners. If they grabbed the cash reserves and ran, without giving their employees severance pay, my opinion will be very very low.

Before we assume that the workers should vacate the plant because it can't be sold with them there, consider that there is likely to be no market for this business given the state of the housing industry and the economy in general.

madrchsod, where did you get your information about the previous owner?