By Tyler Marr

City to prod feds to move on employee pension protection

Dec 17, 2017 | 7:00 AM

Even after its move into receivership, questionable liquidation sales and eventual closure in Prince Albert, Sears Canada continues to face heat over shortchanging employees’ pension plans.

Sears won court approval to liquidate its assets and close all its remaining stores earlier this year, operating under court protection from creditors since June. Now bankrupt, the company has a reported $267 million hole in their pension fund.

Irate some longtime workers could see large chunks of their pensions disappear, Coun. Dennis Nowoselsky has asked correspondence be sent to Ottawa to urge the feds to hurry and enact rules to protect employee pensions when companies go belly-up.

“The executives of the company got great bonuses and the employees who do not make great wages got shafted,” he said. “It is showing our local employees…we care.”

The federal government has come under increasing pressure to do something to protect the pensions of employees with the struggling retailer but has given no hint to when this may occur.

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Pleased to support the motion and pen the letter, Mayor Greg Dionne said he was “a believer that pensions should never be left in the control of private companies.”

“I believe private companies like Sears should [pay] to a third party insurance company to administrate it,” he said. “The employee pays the money and so does the employer so that if a business like Sears goes under, they are protected.”

He told the story of one of his neighbours, who, after working for Sears for 38 years, had to go back to work as she expects to lose some of her pension.

“It is no fault of hers and the government should take notice of this,” he said, not believing Sears will be the only company in which such a story will be true in the future. “I really do believe we have to protect the people that earn the right to that pension.”

Eleven full-time and 38 part-time positions were lost in Prince Albert when the brick-and-motor giant vacated its Gateway Mall location in October.

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr