Longtime Employees Allege Four Seasons Miami ‘Indefinitely Furloughed’ Workers to Avoid Severance Payouts

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The Four Seasons in Miami faces a proposed class action in which six plaintiffs allege the luxury hotel has wrongfully kept a number of workers on a perpetual furlough despite having no intention of bringing them back to work.

The 12-page complaint, filed by six longtime Four Seasons employees, alleges the hotel, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, “created a scheme to deprive thousands of employees of their hard-earned benefits” and indefinitely furloughed many, including some whose positions had been permanently eliminated, as a means to force employees to resign from the company.

These “resignations” are considered “voluntary separations” from the organization, the lawsuit says, and employees, as a result, are thereby stripped of severance money to which they’re entitled under the Four Seasons’ severance policy, the plaintiffs allege, describing defendant Four Seasons Miami Employment Inc.’s alleged conduct as a “severance siphoning scheme.” 

According to the case, although the Four Seasons has “historically created the illusion of job protection,” boasted about its no-fault separation severance and touted a “family-like” work environment, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiffs assert, “exposed” the company for what it was “all along.” The plaintiffs allege they and many other workers at the Four Seasons Miami have received no income from the defendant since they were furloughed in March 2020. 

“The Four Seasons has long known that the Harmed Employees would be involuntarily sidelined for more than 6 months,” the suit alleges. “In fact, the Four Seasons has long known that the Harmed Employees will never be recalled to work. The Four Seasons, however, has failed to provide any notice whatsoever (including any reasonable notice under the circumstances) because of the Severance Siphoning Scheme.” 

As the plaintiffs tell it, the Four Seasons’ “scheme” failed to account for two “major issues.” The first issue, according to the lawsuit, is that the Four Seasons overlooked a provision of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988 that stipulates that a furlough lasting longer than six months is considered an employment loss as a matter of law. 

The case relays that the plaintiffs are among those who have now been on furlough for roughly 14 months. As such, the plaintiffs and hundreds of other furloughed workers, under the WARN Act, were entitled to at least 60 days’ notice prior to their loss of employment, the suit says.

The second issue for which the lawsuit claims the Four Seasons failed to account is that its worker arbitration policy, which was put in place to “keep[] its questionable employment practices as private as possible,” per the suit, does not shield the organization against WARN Act claims. According to the complaint, the arbitration policy only requires claims of employment discrimination, harassment, wage and hour violations and termination to be arbitrated. As a result, the Four Seasons “must now face the collective consequences of its illegal (and hypocritical actions),” the lawsuit says, alleging the defendant has “finally outsmarted itself.” 

The plaintiffs say many workers have attempted to obtain information from the Four Seasons with regard to their work status and the possibility of being recalled, yet the defendant has “continued to keep its workers in the dark in hopes that the growing frustration would lead them to resign and fall into the trap created by the Severance Siphoning Scheme.” 

The lawsuit looks to represent a “class” of all Four Seasons employees at the 1435 Brickell Avenue, Miami, Florida location who were laid off or furloughed in 2020, were not recalled by the Four Seasons within six months, and never received 60 days’ written notice from the company regarding the layoff or furlough.

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