This is the type of story you love to hear at Christmas

Two months ago a private equity firm that had bought up a cookie plant in Ashland had pretty well stripped the cupboard bare and locked the doors to the plant. In doing so they put some 300 hundred workers out of their jobs just before the Christmas holidays. Workers who had been promised that there would be plenty of work for all of them now had to tell their families that this Christmas wasn’t going to be like in the past.

This week thought saw the plant being purchased at auction by Lance Inc. who immediately called back 50 to 70 workers to work at the plant. Not only were they called back but they also will maintain their seniority and pay from before the plant was closed. Lance has also promised to hire back all the remaining workers as soon as they can.

As good as this might be as a heart warming Christmas story what Lance did next makes it even more so. On Tuesday Lance officials handed out $1,500 VISA gift cards to all the employees both as a way to show the employees that the company means what it says and to help their families have Christmas they might not have had.

A big thanks to Doug over at The Marketing Technology Blog for sharing this story]