LandAir entitled to bennies

Posted by Ted Cohen/Patch.com

Four members of the U.S. Congress representing Vermont and Massachusetts are calling on Corbel Capital Partners — which owns LandAir, the Williston-based trucking company that filed for bankruptcy in July — to provide severance pay to laid-off employees.

In a letter Friday to Corbel CEO Jeffrey Schwartz, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.; and U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both Massachusetts Democrats, said the nearly 450 LandAir workers, including those at 11 facilities in New England, were “blindsided” by the company’s closure.

LandAir was required by law to notify its employees of a complete worksite closure at least 45 days beforehand, lawmakers wrote, but instead didn’t give them “any notice.”

“When you acquired LandAir, you also acquired its obligations and responsibilities to its workers,” they wrote. “There must be no get-out-of-jail free card.”

LandAir specialized in shipping loads smaller than a truckload but larger than a parcel.

In the industry, such companies are known as LTLs, for “less than truckload.” It operated an 18-door truck terminal in Williston, VT and a 20-door truck terminal in Windsor, VT, as well as New-England terminals in Maine and New Hampshire.

Lawmakers said the first workers laid off at LandAir without warning were nighttime drivers.

Other employees then raised concerns with management about their job security, the lawmakers wrote, but “were told not to worry” as the company was going through “restructuring.”

Then, on the morning of July 5, lawmakers said, employees were unable to log into their computers.

Drivers were notified that the company would not be making pickups.

Later that day, workers were told via Zoom that they no longer had jobs, and all operations would wind down by the end of the week, per the letter.

Vermont’s Department of Labor received information July 6 that LandAir was terminating operations in the state and laying off its employees, Commissioner Michael Harrington

LandAir was founded in Vermont as Allied Air Freight in 1968 by Fred Spencer, according to the company website.

The company was purchased by Corbel Capital Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, in 2018.

Per bankruptcy filings, lawmakers wrote, LandAir had amassed nearly $50 million in debt, including some $34 million it owed to Corbel.

“Your business model has a track record of buying up family-run businesses like LandAir, loading them up with debt, then leaving out the back door, making out like bandits while workers and communities pay the price,” they said to Schwartz.

The lawmakers urged Corbel to “make affected employees whole” by providing them with severance pay for the entire period of time they should have known about LandAir’s impending closures.
In addition, they said Corbel should “immediately comply” with requests for information from federal, state and local agencies.

Harrington said in late July that his department had obtained a list of LandAir’s former Vermont employees from company attorneys, and officials were reaching out to the employees to provide unemployment compensation and reemployment services.

Corbel Capital Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

A phone call to Justin Kesselman, an attorney representing LandAir in its bankruptcy filing, was not returned.