Dear Editor:

I started my job at Polywood the week of April 17 this year. They were still hiring people at least three weeks ago. Everyone they just hired plus people who had been there for one to three years even got laid off. They never said anything to anyone about any possibility of a layoff. Actually, around the beginning of June, we got notice of one of the buildings adding a third shift. Meaning it was going to be a shift of almost all new hires but some people, like me, offered to switch to third shift before they started hiring outside of the company.

This third shift is supposed to start July 30. They told each group of employees they took up to speak to that they “are not terminating you, just laying off. If you don’t receive a call back in six months, you will have to reapply.” When someone in my group asked why they are laying off, they said, “We are slowing down. And if we don’t lay off, we will run out of inventory space and would have to completely shut down for awhile until it picked back up again.”

They knew this was going to happen, but they refused to give anyone any type of notice to give us time to look for a job. Me and my fiance have our wedding in seven weeks and then a honeymoon. We are already rescheduling our honeymoon for a year away and cutting costs for the wedding as much as we can.

HR and the supervisors refused to give me any information and answers to my question of why they are laying off but starting a third shift and hiring new people for that. The whole Polywood company also took away employees cell phones. Even any type of supervisor. If there was a family emergency or anything, no one would know because no one could get in contact with Polywood. Unless you want to get written up for just checking your phone, which either had to be put in a box with everyone else’s or left in your vehicle.

Polywood is also a very diverse company and you worked with people who didn’t speak English/Spanish. I personally used my phone to translate and communicate with my coworkers which was needed to do my job. I got written up for using my phone to communicate with a coworker and was no longer able to communicate with half of the employees.

Polywood is becoming a joke of a company and I personally advise anyone not to apply there. And if you haven’t been with the company three plus years, you will get the possibility of being laid off and if you are less than a year there, you will 100% be laid off after next summer. They said, “It looks like we are becoming a seasonal company.”

I know you can’t actually take my word for any of this. And I’m not making any of this up just because I’m mad. I loved my job, my pay and better yet, my coworkers and supervisor. I fully believe our shift supervisors and anyone below knew nothing about this. But I could be wrong about that part. Everything else is true to the word.

They had us come into work, no warning, some of us worked up to two hours into the shift before they came and got your group to lay off. I feel like what they did to us should be illegal but it’s not. Over 200 lives were affected in one day and this company just doesn’t care.

Kourtney Tackett