‘This is not a game’ – Sears to close its retail stores and shut down for Christmas

LOS ANGELES — The Sears retail giant is closing its doors for the Christmas season, and the company will shut down its doors as early as Wednesday morning.

The company announced Thursday that it will close its stores by mid-December and will close stores at its downtown Los Angeles warehouse starting on Dec. 27.

It will close two other locations: a warehouse in Las Vegas and one in Houston.

The stores in the Las Vegas location will close Jan. 6.

We are continuing to monitor the financial situation and are making every effort to provide a safe and efficient return for our employees and the communities we serve,” he said. “

These measures will ensure that we can deliver more value to our customers in a time of financial difficulty.

We are continuing to monitor the financial situation and are making every effort to provide a safe and efficient return for our employees and the communities we serve,” he said.

Lampert said that the closures will help Sears focus on a more strategic plan for the company.

On Thursday, the company also announced it would be shutting down its Sears Online store in its hometown of Minneapolis.

It will remain online through Jan. 5, 2020.

Also Thursday, Sears announced that it would close its flagship online store in downtown Los Angles, but will keep some of its online stores in other markets.

At least two other Sears stores will close their doors for Christmas.

 Sears, which opened in 1948, is the world’s largest department store chain and the third-largest retailer in the United States.

Its stores in Minneapolis, Houston and Los Angeles have long been plagued by problems with labor conditions, low customer loyalty and poor customer service.

In January, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U-Haul union filed a lawsuit against Sears and the parent company, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, alleging that the companies’ hiring practices and the way they handled warehouse workers left many of them jobless.

In a letter sent to employees, Kohliberg Kreski Roberts president and CEO Michael Kressel said that Sears was “working to meet all of the commitments made by the UHaul Labor Organization to support workers at the Minneapolis and Los Angls stores.”

The lawsuit said that in January, Kohloghans decision to close the Minneapolis store and relocate its operations to Los Angeles was made without any consideration for the workers at those stores, who had to work in dangerous conditions for months, according to the Urikan Times.

The union also alleged that the stores in Houston and Las Vegas had low employee morale and high turnover rates.

In a separate lawsuit filed in November, the labor union also accused Sears of forcing workers to use a computer program called “Dance Dance Revolution” that allowed the company to track the locations of workers and their shifts, as well as their pay and benefits.

In March, the federal government said that it had settled a class action lawsuit against Kohlheim Kravis, alleging a variety of violations of the National Labor Relations Act, including wage theft, excessive overtime, illegal retaliation and the denial of fair labor conditions.

Follow AP Business Writer Scott Stump on Twitter at @ScottStumpAP