Lawsuit Accuses Hope Bakery Of Violating Labor Law In Plant Closing

HOPE, Ark. –A putative class action filed Wednesday accuses the owners of Hope Bakery, which is scheduled to shut down this week, of violating federal law by failing to give employees at least 60 days notice that they would be losing their jobs.

Hope Bakery employee Christopher Estrada alleges that Hope Bakery owners are in violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires employers of 100 or more people to provide at least 60 days written notice before a plant closing or mass layoff. 

Plans to shutter the Hope Bakery plant in Hope, Ark., were announced July 18 through the company’s employee portal. Workers were told their employment would end the following Saturday.

Estrada is asking a federal court in Texarkana, Ark., to certify the case as a class action that would include all of the bakery employees who found themselves with a week to secure new employment. 

The lawsuit seeks compensation for the employees for unpaid wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay, accrued vacation pay, pension and 401(k) contributions and other benefits they would have earned in the 60 days after the termination date.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are Hope Baking Company Inc. and East Baking Co. Inc. East Baking acquired a majority ownership of Hope Baking in 2023 and both company’s share management and ownership, according to Estrada’s complaint. 

“Specifically, Danny Serra was the president, treasurer, secretary and director of both Hope and East,” the complaint said.

Hope Bakery was completely dependent on East Baking for daily operating funds, East Baking made the management hiring decisions for Hope, and East Baking also made the decision to close the Hope plant, according to the complaint.

Court records previously reviewed by TXKtoday show the company’s financial problems date back more than two years. Hope Baking was sued by at least three creditors over unpaid debts beginning in 2023, including staffing firm Collier Investments LLC, Riceland Foods Inc. and Sysco Arkansas LLC. The company did not defend itself in any of the cases, and each ended in a default judgment. The most recent, an $11,075.39 judgment for Sysco, was entered June 22, less than a month before the closure letter went out.

Estrada is represented by Matthews Coe of Rogers & Coe Attorneys at Law, Stuart J. Miller of Lankenau & Miller LLP, and Mary E. Olsen and M. Vance McCrary of the Gardner Firm.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge John Thomas Shepherd in the Western District of Arkansas.