Encanto Restaurants, which operated Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell in Puerto Rico, has not given its former employees layoff letters or the information the Puerto Rico Department of Labor needs to assist them, journalist Carmen Jovet said on the program En Caliente con la Jovet. Jovet said the company went bankrupt without warning its employees of its financial problems and has delayed giving the Department of Labor data on how much each worker earned; unemployment insurance varies with salary, she said.
"There is zero information," one panelist said.
"They don’t even have the letter," Jovet said of the document employees are asked for when they go to the Department of Labor. She said the company has ignored the department’s requirements, according to what the secretary told her during a 40-minute meeting; Jovet said she received the labor secretary on the program. According to Jovet, the secretary said department staff advise employees at the large centers, that those affected number in the thousands, and that fast-food companies want to hire them.
Jovet said many lack documentation. "There is zero information," one panelist said. Another said a pay stub is not enough and that the employer must report how each employee left, because the benefits they are entitled to depend on it.
One panelist called it "a problem of irresponsibility by the company Encanto" and said the obstacles the Department of Labor has faced stem from the employer’s noncompliance.