EUGENE, Ore.–A group of PenFed employees here whose jobs are being relocated to Texas staged a protest outside the CU’s local offices that received local TV coverage.
Holding signs that read “Pen Fargo” and “PenFed Family? Families Don’t Have Layoffs,” the employees walked along a sidewalk while one person said through a megaphone, “PenFed Layoffs Need to be Reversed,” and other responded, “PenFed employees will not be dispersed.”
As CUToday.info reported here, approximately 220 employees who work in Pentagon Federal Credit Union offices in Oregon, Virginia and Nebraska have been told they will need to relocate to Texas in order to retain their jobs, with at least one employee suggesting he and others were being “shoved out” of their positions. But PenFed said that is not the case, and that all affected employees will be guaranteed a role in their newly assigned location and will “receive relocation assistance and financial incentives to support their transition.”
Big Texas Expansion
As CUToday.info reported here and here, Virginia-based PenFed FCU has announced plans to expand in Texas. It is opening a new $48-million financial center in San Antonio that it said will create approximately 570 jobs (including the 220 relocated positions. Separately, it is opening a facility in Frisco, Texas for a new mortgage servicing center at which it expects approximately 30 people to be employed. As CUToday.info reported in April, at that time PenFed said its mortgage servicing team will move to the new Frisco building, while the PenFed mortgage operations team will relocate to the recently purchased San Antonio Regional Financial Service Center.
‘Moving Across Country Not Feasible’
About a dozen of the 100 employees in the PenFed office in Eugene, Ore., participated in the protest in front of the credit union’s offices. PenFed employee Michael Sale told NBC 16 many of the workers are unable to relocate and that they want the jobs to remain in Oregon. “Moving across the country is not feasible for a lot of people,” Sale told the news station.
The station quoted PenFed as saying approximately half the employees have chosen to relocate to Texas or to another Eugene facility.
The group of workers also dropped off a petition from employees and members of the public asking for the decision to be reversed.
Sale said his last day with PenFed will be October 9.
The full NBC TV report can be viewed here.