Laid off from Monterey Mushrooms.

What Monterey Mushrooms layoffs have meant for employees

At Zellwood and Royal Oaks, Monterey Mushrooms closed the farm and kept the crop. Company officials said Zellwood's production would shift to seven other Monterey farms, according to ClickOrlando, and an October 2024 Organic Produce Network report said other Monterey farms would take over Royal Oaks' mushrooms. Far fewer people were offered a move. About 70 Royal Oaks employees, of the 605 its closing was set to lay off, were offered positions at Morgan Hill, according to Santa Cruz Local. At both farms the crop found a new home, and at Royal Oaks most of the people who grew it weren't offered one.

If a Monterey severance offer hangs on staying to a set date, as KWQC reported Princeton's did, a copy of the letter that sets the date, and a note of any day the company changes it, is worth having beside your pay stubs. The Zellwood letter gave the farm's end as a range, late January or February of 2024, according to WFTV, which leaves room for a last day to shift. The same Princeton letter said the company wouldn't contest workers' unemployment claims, and a written line like that from an employer is one to hold on to in case a claim is ever questioned.

Royal Oaks was a union farm. About 400 of its workers were represented by the United Farm Workers, and Antonio De Loera, the UFW representative Santa Cruz Local quoted, said the pensions some had built up through the union were secure, including for undocumented workers. For a lot of them, he said, whole careers had been spent there, in a workforce with seniority that was "just really unique in U.S. agriculture." Princeton stood on different footing, since Illinois's November 2023 WARN report records the notice's answer to both the union and the bumping-rights questions as no. If you're a UFW member at a Monterey farm and your job is cut, it makes sense to keep your pension statements with the layoff paperwork, since the pension was the benefit the union said would hold at Royal Oaks.

Pickers had money coming that sat apart from severance. De Loera said the UFW secured $235,000 to settle a wage dispute in which workers alleged the company had underpaid for the weight of some boxes of picked mushrooms, with pickers set to receive up to $3,000. If you picked for Monterey and are owed part of that settlement, it settles a wage claim rather than paying severance, so matching each payment to its own paperwork keeps one from being mistaken for the other.

The Zellwood notice counted people the company didn't employ directly. Its letter listed contract workers beside Monterey's own employees, and they were more than half of the people it counted, according to WFTV, while ClickOrlando, citing the release, put all 214 down as the Florida farm's workers. If a labor contractor placed you at a Monterey farm, you may appear in the company's numbers without being one of its employees, and it's sensible to keep a dated log of your shifts and the contractor's name.

The closings landed on towns where many of the workers lived. Many Royal Oaks workers lived in Watsonville, and, as Santa Cruz Local reported, laid-off workers learned about job training and unemployment benefits at a county event there in December 2024, where a 44-year Royal Oaks employee talked to a job recruiter. Most of Princeton's workers lived a few miles away in DePue, according to KWQC, and the village president, Daniel Hoffert, said getting a job fair started was among the things the village wanted to do. The Watsonville event happened, and the DePue job fair was still a plan when KWQC reported it. If you're sizing up local help after a Monterey cut, a session with a date and a place on record is a firmer thing to count on than one a town says it wants to start.

A sourced history of Monterey Mushrooms layoffs

• July 2026, Morgan Hill farm restructuring

  Monterey said it was making the 642 Hale Ave. site solely a packing facility, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, with 246 jobs from growing-department laborers to mechanics and harvesting technicians set to go from September and seven more, including the farm manager, in November and December.

• September 2024, Royal Oaks farm closing

  Monterey's permanent closure notice for 605 employees reached EDD on September 17, as the state's 2024-25 WARN report records, and the filing planned to phase out work from about December 9 to December 23, according to Organic Produce Network.

• November 2023, Princeton, Illinois farm closing

  Monterey's closing notice for 329 workers reached Illinois on November 8, with layoffs set to start January 13, 2024, according to the state's November 2023 WARN report. A letter offered severance packages to workers who stayed until operations ended, according to KWQC.

• November 2023, Zellwood, Florida farm closing

  The November 8 closing letter WFTV described counted 214 layoffs, 97 of them employees and 117 contract workers. A company release ClickOrlando quoted announced the closing alongside Princeton's.

What to do if you're laid off from Monterey Mushrooms

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Monterey Mushrooms's biggest hubs: California, Illinois, Florida. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Monterey Mushrooms's hub states run: California, Illinois, Florida, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.