Two Utahns are charging that Unisys Corp. dealt unfairly with them by promising severance benefits if they voluntarily quit the organization, then reneging on the promise when they found other jobs.
Former Unisys employees Kenneth Morley, Sandy, and Craig Berrett, Kaysville, filed the suit in late August in 3rd District Court, but it is being transferred to U.S. District Court.The suit is just the most recent of a succession of headaches for Unisys, the county's fourth-largest computer manufacturer.
The Salt Lake operation has been laying off workers, with the most recent wave of separations, 250 employees, announced in July. In Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 6, Unisys agreed to pay a record $190 million fine for bribing officials to get hundreds of millions of dollars in defense contracts.
Meanwhile, Unisys lost a total of $1.1 billion in 1989 and 1990. The plant in Salt Lake City employs about 2,500.
Berrett began working for the Salt Lake office on July 7, 1982, and Morley on June 20, 1987, the suit says. Last summer, Unisys announced to its employees a voluntary work-force reduction program. A second such program followed on Nov. 1, 1990.
Berrett and Morley were eligible for the benefits, which offered a minimum of four weeks of severance pay plus a week's pay for every year at Unisys, the suit says.
In order to take advantage of the offer employees had to volunteer before the end of their shifts on Nov. 30, 1990, and terminate with Unisys by Dec. 15, 1990. Both Berrett and Morley submitted applications for the reduction program before Nov. 30, the suit adds.
"Morley and Berrett were assured by their supervisors at Unisys that they would be accepted for participation in the program," it adds. The program doesn't prohibit employees from obtaining new jobs, and in fact "states that participating employees who obtain new jobs will continue to receive the benefits promised," the suit claims.
The men's supervisors were informed Morley and Berrett had found new employment, based on Unisys' promises. The suit notes that they were losing more than the salary checks because they were also giving up seniority with the company.
They began to train their replacements, but on Dec. 3 they were informed their applications for participation in the program were denied.
"Despite written policies and verbal assurance to the contrary, Morley and Berrett were subsequently informed . . . that Unisys did not want to pay employees to leave the company if those employees had already obtained other jobs."