The Employee Trust Votes
Chapter 10 - The Employee Trust Votes
The temporary board faced its first major decision.
Banks demanded immediate repayment of loans secured through fraudulent pension transfers. Closing three factories would satisfy lenders but eliminate four thousand jobs.
Julian’s supporters argued this proved the merger was necessary.
Mateo Alvarez proposed an alternative: employees could convert part of unpaid pension claims into voting shares, while the Hartwell family trust sold luxury properties and nonessential investments.
Vivian owned the conservatory, two aircraft, a coastal resort, and art purchased through company accounts.
She approved their sale.
The conservatory was the hardest.
It contained her earliest memories of belonging, even if that belonging had been constructed.
Workers proposed keeping it as a training and public meeting center rather than selling to a private buyer.
The employee trust voted.
Seventy-one percent supported preservation under cooperative ownership.
The glass ballroom would no longer belong to one family.
Vivian transferred the property to the cooperative for a symbolic dollar after independent valuation and debt review.
Critics called it theatrical generosity.
Mateo corrected them.
“The workers already paid for it through diverted pensions.”
Vivian repeated that publicly.
She was not giving them a gift.
She was returning an asset.
The restructuring saved two factories. One still closed.
Vivian visited the affected town.
Some workers blamed her for exposing the fraud at the worst possible time.
They were not wrong to be angry.
Truth did not guarantee painless outcomes.
The company funded extended wages, retraining, and community ownership of the abandoned facility.
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It remained a loss.
Vivian stopped using words like win when discussing reform.
