Mar 6, 2007

Rep. Lantos steps into cable skirmish

By Mark Abramson / Daily News Staff Writer

Rep. Tom Lantos, (D-Calif.) is asking Brisbane-based Monster Cable to boost its severance package for 120 people whom the company laid off.

In a Feb. 28 letter to Monster Cable chief executive officer Noel Lee, the San Mateo-based congressman offered to help mediate the labor dispute. The controversy stems from the four-week severance pay given to the workers, who were laid off in October.

Most of the former employees are Chinese, Vietnamese or Latino immigrants, and Lantos worries the language barrier will make it difficult for them to find new jobs. The workers have argued that the severance pay is inadequate.

"It is in our common interest to seek out and promote a reasonable solution to this troubling matter," Lantos wrote to the firm.

Monster Cable officials said they have received Lantos' letter and plan to respond in a few days.

"We are going to contact his office and offer to meet," said David Tognotti, Monster's vice president and general counsel. "The issue is pretty straightforward. We took great effort to provide our workers with a fair notice period and severance package. We did all we could do for them."

Tognotti said the employees were notified 60 days before their layoffs and that Monster has continued to help them find work by contacting other companies about job openings. The company hired employment counselors to assist the workers, he said.

The jobs, which are mostly in manufacturing electronics accessories such as cables for televisions, were not outsourced to other countries as the media reported, Tognotti said. The positions were eliminated because the jobs were redundant, he said.

Laid-off Monster Cable employees took their grievance to the front door of Lee's home in Hillsborough Saturday, where they held a 10 a.m. demonstration.

Police were called when security guards hired by Monster Cable blocked off Pine Court, said Hillsborough police Capt. Mark O'Connor. The guards complied when police asked them to reopen the street. No one was cited or arrested during the demonstration, which ended around 1 p.m., O'Connor added.

Lantos' letter came about two weeks after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that called for a "fair" severance package and for the company to set up a $2 million fund to help retrain the laid-off workers for other jobs and to help find them work. Under the resolution, which Supervisor Jake McGoldrick sponsored, Monster Cable would provide the money.

McGoldrick's office and that of San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin offered to meet with Monster representatives and five laid-off workers on Dec. 11 regarding the severance package, but Monster officials never showed up, said Betty Chan, McGoldrick's legislative assistant.

Tognotti said the meeting was canceled because Monster discovered there would be 40 to 50 laid-off workers, and that the grass-roots Chinese Progressive Association had been invited against the company's wishes.

"We are still very interested in helping to get our people, our former employees, back to work," Tognotti said. "We offered all we can offer."



E-mail Mark Abramson at mabramson@dailynewsgroup.com