![Workers laid off in the wake of the Toys "R" Us bankruptcy protested inside a Union, N.J. store Sunday. Cheryl Claude, who worked for Toys "R" Us for 33 years, is in the blue coat.](https://media.wnyc.org/i/800/0/l/85/1/Toys__R__Us_NJ_Store_Takeover_4.jpg)
Workers from around the nation laid off in the wake of the Toys "R" Us bankruptcy protested at a soon-to-be-shuttered store in Union, N.J. Sunday, briefly occupying the aisles to demand severance pay that the company has refused to provide.
The protesters, representing 30,000 people who have or will soon lose their jobs, accused the investment firms that own the chain of saddling it with debt and driving it into bankruptcy while lavishing millions of dollars on executives.
Cheryl Claude of South River worked at Toys "R" Us for 33 years, her entire career.
"Thirty-three years of losing holidays with my family, no Thanksgiving dinners with my family," she said. "And all the hard work that everyone has done for these people. Give us something. At least something."
She loses her job running a warehouse at the end of June. She won't get severance payments or medical benefits after that.
"I don't know where we're going to live, what I'm going to drive, how I'm going to get to another job if I can't make my car payments," said Claude, 52, whose 60-year-old husband just got a part-time job to supplement their income.
Claude worries about writing a resumé for the first time. She was earning $63,000 a year — enough, she said, for rent, car payments, dinner out once a month and gifts for her grandchildren from, of course, Toys "R" Us.
"It was just like working with your family," she said. "I got up every day going to work like I was working with my family. I enjoyed going to work."
At the Toys "R" Us headquarters in Wayne, NJ, 1,600 people will be laid off. New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez held a press conference on the situation on Friday, with Menendez saying "this storied New Jersey company was run into the ground by a bunch of corporate raiders looking to turn a profit," according to The Record newspaper.
He put the blame on the owners — venture capital firms KKR and Bain Capital, and real estate firm Vornado Realty. A week before filing for bankruptcy last year, Toys "R" Us gave its executives $8 million in bonuses. Since 2005, the three firms collected $470 million in advisory fees and other payments. And Dave Brandon, the company's chief executive, made $11.25 million last year.
Spokespeople for the companies did not respond to emailed questions on Sunday.