More continuations of this kind of thing: Morneau sides with shareholders, not Canadian workersMore from the "OMG he's even worse than I thought" file: Morneau Shepell, Sears and more — they’ve all forgotten about the little guy
Surprising that isn't a crime to do that... but then we get into our Finance Minister:
So the Finance Minister allows one of the larger retailers in Canada to crater, its employees without a funded pension plan... and then benefits from it DIRECTLY?
This is some serious WTF-level stuff.
I don't agree with Parkin on much, but on this issue, I'm with him 100%. Some of the comments in that article raise the idea of why should the company bear the risk, and the employees none? Because they're employees you idiot. Part of the compensation package is a promised pension with benefits A, B, & C. How would you like it if your employer said to you "ya, we had a bad year, so your pay is being cut by 30%. Oh my pay? Oh no, I couldn't cut that." That's basically what's happening here, and in other companies as well.Perhaps it is not strange that executives running some of Canada’s biggest companies would choose to shortchange their employees’ pension plans, preferring instead to pay dividends to themselves and other shareholders.
But, what seems odd is that our government allows it.
Of course, in running any business there are choices to be made. But surely whether or not employees should be paid what they are owed cannot be not one of them. That is an obligation.
Or it should be.
But there was disturbing news in a report last week by David Macdonald, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. According to Macdonald’s research, many Canadian companies are paying massive dividends to shareholders even while they are underfunding their employees’ pension plan.
I think that Parkin's (the author) argument is particularly well-supported by citing large companies that ARE doing the right thing and supporting employee pension plans. It lends extra weight to his arguments.
Again, Parkin and I are on opposite sides of MANY issues, but this isn't one of them.
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