Warren, Booker Press Bed Bath & Beyond on Worker Severance Pay

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker are pressing Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. on an earlier move to flout employee severance pay as mass lay-offs roiled the bankrupt retailer’s stores across the country in recent months, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg News.

The company stopped paying severance to dismissed store employees in an effort to preserve cash before going bankrupt in late April. In its home state of New Jersey, it cut about 1,300 workers on April 9 — just one day before expanded severance pay laws took effect in the state.

Bed Bath & Beyond eventually opted ...