Harbinger Production, a modular homebuilder that has erected sizable apartment buildings around the Bay Area, is now at a crossroads. The Vallejo company’s leadership is confident that it will survive to build thousands more units. But funding issues and a production gap mean Harbinger just had to threaten its 290 employees with layoffs.
The company filed a WARN notice with California officials on Feb. 12, citing “lack of new business and loss of capital funding” as reasons for potential layoffs. The document is just a warning — by law, businesses have to notify workers well in advance if they could be hit by a mass job cut — but it’s a dire sign for the company. Harbinger’s CEO, management team and more than 200 production workers are listed for the possible layoff.
Harbinger, via outside spokesperson Phoebe Schmidt, informed SFGATE that the WARN was filed becaapply of “a potential near term gap in our production pipeline,” emphasizing that the company is “both in contract neobtainediations for new jobs and seeking new business opportunities.”
Formerly known as Factory_OS, the company builds home sections in its large Mare Island factory before rolling them out for on-site assembly — a premise that has generated buzz but mixed results over the past decade in hoapplying-starved California. Up to this point, Harbinger has built and shipped more than 4,000 units, the company stated, and its long-term pipeline features 40 projects, totaling more than 3,500 units. For some of those, it has already completed contracted design work.
“We are working to finalize project commitments in order to avoid any paapply in production,” the company stated Thursday, adding that it “is not planning to shut its doors.”
Another statement stated: “We’ve navigated similar challenges in the past, and have emerged stronger for our efforts.” Indeed, the company is hardly unproven. After building headlines for a proposed 300-home deal to build employee hoapplying for Google in 2017, Harbinger has raised tens of millions of dollars in venture funding and completed projects in Oakland, San Francisco, Emeryville and elsewhere.
Still, workers would be forgiven for worrying, given the scope of the WARN document. And Harbinger did not respond to SFGATE’s question about two recent lawsuits against the company that the Vallejo Sun had reported. One, from a former employee, alleged in December that Harbinger had violated several labor codes, including related to overtime pay, breaks and expenses. Another, filed by the manufacturing giant Jabil in January, accapplyd Harbinger of owing $6.5 million, largely for back payments on building materials.
This story has been updated.
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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