Just being a former employee doesn’t automatically make you a creditor. If the former employees are owed wages or vacation pay or something, then of course they are creditors. The big money guys haven’t used the definitions in the Code to squash employees. They use other parts of the Code, raw economic power, and their ability to choose their forum to do that. About 25 years ago I filed an involuntary petition against a scam contractor for some consumers. Things have changed a lot since then, I’m not so sure that I would do that again. The requirements have changed and there will probably be sanctions if you are unsuccessful. The favored class doesn’t want to be bothered by pesky worker ants. I represented 5 former employees of the Shelby Yarn Company and we filed an involuntary 7 when the plant closed without notice. The employees had WARN Act and back pay claims in excess of $30K. We prevailed in the involuntary and the court formed a Special Committee of 645 former employees. I was named Special Counsel for the Committee and for the Trustee. We then sued the Officers, Directors and Stockholders. The employees finally ended up with about $2.2 million and I ended up with a very good fee. Once the involuntary petition was granted, after a trial, we had to prepare all of the schedules and the SOFA. It took as 3 weeks of daily work. We did get access to the plant and all of the records and data bases and had two of their former tech employees present-all by order of the court. Once the involuntary was granted, the Court also ordered the US Marshalls to lock down the plant and secure all of the records.
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