Former Vertis Communications employees stage a protest outside the Eagle Street plant, earlier this month. Bullet News file photo by John Robbins.
JOHN ROBBINS/Bullet News
FORT ERIE – Welland NDP MPP Cindy Forster want to know what the federal and provincial governments are prepared to do to prevent workers from losing their severance and benefits when a foreign-owned company operating in Canada closes.
On Monday, Forster raised the issue in the Legislature when she spoke of the story of more than 100 former employees of Vertis Communications in Stevensville.
Last month, workers were called to a meeting and told the plant is closing effective immediately.
The move came after the assets of its U.S.-parent company was sold through bankruptcy proceedings to another American firm, Quad Graphics.
That company did not purchase the Fort Erie facility, which was previously known as American Color Graphics.
Union officials immediately decried the closure, urging the company to live up to its “legal and moral obligations.”
“A company does not have the right to shut down without notice or compensation for the employees that have worked for them, many for most of their lives,” Dan Wickson, president of CEP Local 425G, said in a statement the following day.
It’s still unclear what, if anything, legally can be done to aid the workers, who were told there would be no severance payments made.
For weeks, a group of workers working in shifts have picketed outside the plant, holding up vehicles entering and leaving the facility in hope that this kind of pressure and public attention will result in the company taking a different stance.
This past weekend, Forster and Welland NDP MP Malcolm Allen visited the workers on the picket line as a show of solidarity.
Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor has also been down to the line and has been in regular contact with union officials offering whatever assistance is available from his office.
Cindy Forster
On Monday, Forster questioned the new government of Premier Kathleen Wynne about the issue.
“If US Vertis Communications is not responsible for the workers’ severance pay and Quad Graphics is not responsible for the workers’ severance pay, who is going to ensure that Ontario workers’ rights for severance pay are upheld?” asked Forster.
“What are the Wynne Liberal government and the Harper Conservative government going to do to ensure that when foreign companies invest in this province and open in this province that workers’ rights are protected under provincial and federal employment legislation?
“The government is supposed to be there for the people.”
As Forster’s comments were read in the House as a Members’ Statement, there was no immediate response from the government benches.
2 Comments on "POLITICS: Forster demands to know what feds, province will do to protect workers’ rights in wake of Fort Erie plant closing"
In reference to the bankruptcy of Vertis Printing and its workers getting screwed out of severance pay and vacation monies owing, such severance and vacation monies are in fact, deferred wages. The Vertis employees earned those monies as part of their hourly wage. It is factored into their hourly compensation rate, reducing their hourly wage equal to the “roll up” costs such as vacation pay, severance pay, CPP and EI premiums, company-paid health & dental coverage, etc.
Apparently the senior execs of this bankrupt company received millions of dollars in buyouts and payouts yet no monies are left for the Canadian hourly-paid employees. Our Federal and Provincial governments appear powerless to do anything about this blatant violation of the ESA. The workers have been told their only option is to hopefully sue the American (bankrupt) parent company in a California court. How many years and how much money will that cost the workers? Regardless, do U.S. laws even legally apply/extend to workers in Canada? Most think not. Good luck with that option.
The ever-shrinking middle class continues to see their standard of living decline while fat-cat corporate executives make sure they get theirs. Both inside and outside Canada, corporate execs gleefully enjoy astronomical salaries, outrageous bonuses, stock options, golden parachutes, etc while the blue collar employees of these bankrupt businesses (such as those at Vertis) get screwed out of their severance and vacation pay. The Vertis bankruptcy is yet another ugly example of what’s wrong with this country’s right wing, corporate agenda and how it views and exploits the middle class (quickly becoming the “working poor”).
Similar to pension fund regulations, provincial laws should require all corporations (especially foreign-owned) to ensure severance and vacation monies are contributed on a consistent basis (ie regular payroll) to a dedicated, third-party-administered “Severance/Vacation Pay Fund” thus ensuring these monies have been put aside and are readily available whenever a bankruptcy/plant closure occurs. Non-compliance of these ongoing contributions would trigger immediate investigation and enforcement by a Provincial regulatory body (ie Ministry of Labour or Financial Services Commission).
It’s an intriguing idea, but the political right would quickly label it a “job killer” (tell that to the employees at Vertis). Of course, we’ve heard this same old hue and cry before from right-wing, special interest groups with the passage of every other such progressive legislation including child-labour laws, minimum wage laws, health & safety laws, employment standards laws, Canada Pension, E.I., ant-pollution laws, pension regulations, etc, etc. History will show that with the implementation of each of these laws, the business community cried and screamed it could never survive under such outrageous legislation (yawn).
In the final analysis, it won’t stop companies from going out of business for one reason or another, and it certainly won’t stop an incompetent management from running a company into the ground (businesses go bankrupt every day and will continue to do so), but at the very least, the innocent employees caught up in a corporate bankruptcy will at least be assured they will receive what they have rightfully earned and is properly owed to them. Employees of bankrupted businesses (especially foreign-owned) deserve to be viewed as more than just “collateral damage” – they kept up their end of the bargain – corporations and our labour/bankruptcy laws in this 21st century need to do the same. It’s an idea whose time has come.
Wait. Should n’t she be answering this question instead of asking it?