Dear Katy, My name is Colleen, and I work at Toys "R" Us in Concord, California. When I found out that the owners of Toys "R" Us decided to liquidate its entire U.S. operation, I was heartbroken. This has been my dream job since I was four-years-old. In the next few weeks, more than 30,000 Toys "R" Us workers like me will be out of a job with no severance, but the private equity funds that drove Toys "R" Us into the ground – Bain Capital, KKR, and Vornado – are walking away with $470 million dollars in fees and interest that they pulled out of Toys "R" Us over the years. This is unacceptable. That's why I started my own campaign on CREDOMobilize.com, which allows activists to start their own petitions. My petition to Bain, KKR, and Vornado says the following: Private equity funds and corporate executives shouldn't profit by bankrupting a company and throwing people out of work. Use the $470 million profit to pay the 30,000 out-of-work Toys "R" Us workers $15,000 in severance each for the years of hard work employees have put into the company that allowed the private equity firms to make millions in the first place. Tell Toys "R" Us investors: Employees deserve severance pay. Click here to sign the petition. Right now, my coworkers and I have no idea when our store will close – all of the updates we're getting are from the news, and our corporate office is keeping us in the dark. I love my job so much, and it hurts that these private equity companies don't care about running a toy business. They just want the profit, no matter the cost. Just days before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last September, five of the top Toys "R" Us executives received $8.2 million in retention bonuses.1 CEO David Brandon received $2.8 million and asked for court approval of up to another $12 million in incentive bonuses.2 There are more than 1 million retail workers at private equity-owned retailers in the United States. This corporate greed is hurting me and my family. We must speak out now. Will you join me and add your name to my petition urging these greedy private equity firms to pay Toys "R" Us workers severance to help support their families? Thank you for your support. Colleen Kleven References: - Chris Isidore, "Bankrupt Toys "R" Us wins OK to pay $16 million in executive bonuses," CNN Money, Dec. 6, 2017.
- Anthony Noto, "Toys 'R' Us execs get millions more in bonuses despite bankruptcy ," New York Business Journal, Dec. 7, 2017.
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