Employees Laid Off By Email Days Before Christmas Protest Outside Of Snarf's
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Snarf's sandwich shop employees who were laid off by email - three days before Christmas - demonstrated outside the company's Prudential Plaza location at noon today.
Fourteen employees were laid off - by email - from Snarf's shop at 600 West Chicago.
One of those employees was 25-year-old Kevin Brown, who worked there for two-and-a-half years.
"It's very unprofessional to fire your employees in this manner. All of us were hurt by this and... it was very irresponsible and there's no reason that employees should be fired in this manner. So we want to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else."
Former Employees Protest Outside Of Snarf's
Brown says it's been hard getting by.
"Of course. Of course it's difficult. But that's why we're fighting."
Brown made $10 an hour at Snarfs.
Snarf's owner has apologized and said he'll give laid off employees an extra week's pay.
The demonstrators are demanding more. They want to be reinstated and they want back pay for the days they were kept out of their jobs.
There was some undercurrent at the rally that the sudden layoffs were related to workers' attempts to get higher pay from Snarf's.
A spokeswoman for Snarfs said in a statement: "We respect everyone's right to share their opinion on this matter. In previous statements we have said that all employees are welcome to reapply for their positions after we re-open."
