Laying off grandma, after 23 years of dedication at Spansion

In a company statement John Kispert, Spansion president and CEO, said "the global recession is forcing us to make this very difficult decision in order to bring our costs in line with the current expectations for significantly reduced revenues." Yet at the same time as mass layoffs, the company maintained pay increases to its upper-level management and executives. If AIG was emblematic of Wall Street’s demise fueled by its own greed, Spansion’s controversial layoffs are the symbol in Silicon Valley that greed in the new high-tech economy looks and feels a lot like the old one.

Last year, as the company’s financial outlook became less secure, Rodriguez and her co-workers did what they could to keep Spansion running.

“We did our part to make sure people didn’t get laid off, took pay cuts, did work furloughs, everything we could to help out,” she said.

It was during a work furlough that Spansion decided to not bring hundreds of workers at the Sunnyvale branch back. “I was at celebrating my granddaughter’s birthday at Chucky Cheese when my aunt who also works there called and said, ‘check your account, I got some money from Spansion, and I think we just got laid off.’”