At six in the morning on April 15, Nathan DeGray received an email: “Due to the macroeconomic challenges facing the residential solar industry, Freedom Forever has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” it read. “Unfortunately, effective today, all employee positions are furloughed unless you receive direct communication…indicating otherwise.”
Until that moment, DeGray had worked in Connecticut as a warehouse coordinator for the residential solar installer Freedom Forever. The following day, another email informed him that the payment he was due for hours he had already worked was delayed until further notice: “Currently, there is no ETA.”
And two weeks later, just after midnight on May 1, a third and final email told him that his position had been officially terminated, and that the company’s health insurance had ended just hours before.
DeGray calculated that the one-and-a-half paychecks he was owed, combined with his accrued paid time off and sick time totaled roughly $2,700. “That’s my rent for the next four months,” he said.
DeGray isn’t alone — some 1,600 Freedom Forever employees across the country were laid off that same morning, with no paychecks and no timeline for when they would receive them, if at all.
