The court-appointed receiver says workers, such as Maureen MacIntyre, of Coventry, have until early June to file claims.

>

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

EAST PROVIDENCE –– Hundreds of workers who lost their jobs when the Colibri jewelry plant closed without notice last month protested outside the company’s headquarters yesterday, saying Colibri broke federal law by not giving them 60 days’ notice and betrayed employees by “closing the doors in our face.”

The “Rally for Justice for Colibri Workers” was organized by Fuerza Laboral (Power of Workers), a Central Falls immigrant and labor-rights group that fights worker exploitation. Workers want the company to pay them back 60 days’ pay, 60 days’ health care, and severance for years worked.

Protesters holding signs that said “Enough Abuse Already,” “¡Si Se Puede!” and “Respect the WARN Act,” chanted outside in the blowing snow and shook makeshift noisemakers — plastic soda bottles filled with peanuts. The crowd, which eventually swelled to at least 250 people, was allowed inside the building by lawyer Allan M. Shine, who has been appointed receiver.

The Colibri Group, one of the country’s best-known suppliers of independent and chain jewelers, abruptly shut down on Jan. 14 and told 280 workers that was their last pay day. In an announcement that evening, company CEO Jim Fleet blamed “current economic conditions and credit market turmoil,” for forcing it to shut down. Workers who arrived the next day found the doors locked.

A Superior Court judge appointed Shine as receiver on Jan. 15, to sell the company’s assets to pay back more than $28 million in debt and more than $6 million owed to vendors.

Fuerza Laboral argued that Colibri violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act. The law, passed by Congress in 1988, compels companies with at least 100 employees to provide a minimum of 60 days’ notice before closing a plant.

Greg Pehrson, Fuerza Laboral’s director, said the group expects to file a federal lawsuit against the company for allegedly violating the WARN Act. (Laura Hart, spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Training, said some circumstances may exempt companies forced to close by emergency financial challenges.)

Pehrson said that Founders Equity Inc. of New York City, which he said is majority shareholder out of the trio of investors that bought Colibri in 2005, “shirked its responsibility” to follow labor laws and treat workers fairly. He called Founders Equity “an elite group of millionaires” who petitioned the court to force Colibri into receivership and close its doors.

“As many of you know, Colibri shut down very quickly and tossed 280 workers out into the cold,” said Pehrson. “Some of you may be asking, now that Colibri is bankrupt, now what?” He urged the former workers to file claims for their back pay, benefits and severance, and continue by “going out to the streets” and calling on state legislators and the congressional delegation.

Pehrson led the crowd in a chant, “They outsourced wealth, they insourced pain, but we stand united to say, ‘Never again.’ ”

Vannery Sarit, who worked in inventory control, said she’d worked for the company for “a lifetime” of 14½ years.

“I feel so disappointed at the way we’ve been left out in the cold, and how they closed their doors on us,” Sarit said through an interpreter. “I dedicated my life to them, since I came to this country. And now it’s like we’re nothing, but we’re not nothing.”

Emilio Blanco, a 20-year employee, said through an interpreter that when he showed up for work on Jan. 15, “they changed the locks. There was a letter on the door. We were all in the parking lot, and some were crying. I went home and my children said, ‘Dad, what are we going to do?’ ”

George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, thanked the workers for “choosing to fight.”

“The labor movement fought for many, many years for plant-closing legislation,” said Nee. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this … We need to make sure that this law means something, and is not just a piece of paper.”

Shine, the receiver, told workers they have until early June to file claims for severance, back pay and health care. He said he could not predict the outcome, but promised the workers will get “a fair hearing, and a fair and prompt decision” on their claims.

—With reports from Journal staff writer Benjamin N. Gedan

kziner@projo.com

CORRECTION: The amount of money Colibri owes its vendors was incorrect in the original version of this story.