CHICAGO – Even though employees at the Peer Bearing Co. no longer work for the Spungen family that recently sold the Waukegan-based ball bearings maker, they still received a turkey each this Thanksgiving in keeping with tradition.
But even better was the gift that came in mid-September, when the Spungens threw a party to celebrate the company's acquisition by a Swedish company.
They gave away $6.6 million in year-end bonuses to Peer's 230 employees, decided by a formula based on each worker's years of service.
Family members signed two thank-you cards to each employee, one in Spanish and one in English, expressing gratitude for "the loyalty and hard work of our employees over the years."
"They treated us like extended family," said Maria Dima, who works at the company along with her husband, Valentin. "We won the lottery."
On the day the checks were distributed, Valentin Dima watched as co-workers broke down in tears over their bonus checks. He drove home first, then opened his envelope: $33,000. His wife received a check for a smaller amount, and the two Romanian immigrants have since taken a Caribbean cruise to celebrate.
"This company gave us stability, so we dare to spend some money on such a thing," Valentin Dima said.
Read on.
3 comments:
Companies like that are rare today most bleed you to death and then kick you out.
This company sold itself to someone else so let's see what happens to these workers by this time next year.
The company, based in Waugegan, Ill., also has workers in China and Thailand who will receive bonuses from a separate fund.
The bonuses, based on each employee's years of service, are in addition to the company's profit-sharing payments and 401k contributions, the family noted.
The purpose for me posting this article is to show that there are other companies that do care about their employees unlike the news about the corporate greed from the CEOs on wall street. No one that is an employee has any control over a company selling their company to another. It is how the owner of the company treats their employee. The employees came first and not the owners from this article. That is the message. Now, what happens to those employees that get laid off this new company? Who knows? We don't know if the employees that get laid off get a reasonable severance package that was discussed by both companies before the family-owned business sold the company. But, it was generous of what the family-owned business did for the current and former employees in the U.S. and overseas.
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