Ex-Vertis workers end Fort Erie picket line but continue fight for compensation

Bullet News Niagara reports that last week former employees of the closed Vertis Communications plant in Fort Erie, Ontario, stopped picketing outside the plant's front gates, since all the equipment has now been removed, and the few remaining employees working during the shutdown were let go on April 30.  

But the nearly 100 terminated workers are still continuing their fight for the approximately $2.7 million (roughly $27,000 each) they claim is owed to them since they were terminated without prior notice, termination pay, or severance in January, when the plant was closed.  

The closure occurred after Quad/Graphics Inc. purchased most of the assets of Vertis in October 2012, but not the Fort Erie facility.

The ex-workers are represented by the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union of Canada (CEP).  

Through their union, the workers have tried to get at least some compensation from the Wage Income Protection Fund, a federal program meant to provide a maximum of $3,640 to Canadian workers caught up in similar cases.  But although they qualify for the fund, their claim remains unprocessed, because of a technicality:  Vertis apparently did not file for bankruptcy in Canada but rather had a Canadian court recognize the U.S. bankruptcy the company filed in December 2011.  

Rumour also has it that one of the company's former customers, a large Canadian newspaper chain that still owes the company about $2 million, is withholding payment in hopes of finding a legal means to redirect the money to the workers instead of the receiver for the company.  

Please let me know if you have any more news about recent developments.

Current news reports: 
http://www.bulletnewsniagara.ca/2013/05/06/updated-former-vertis-workers-denied-severance-end-plant-gate-picketing-but-the-fights-not-over-yet/  
http://printaction.com/News/20130507-vertis-picketing.html  

Background to this story:
http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/ex-vertis-workers-in-fort-erie-post.html 
http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/vertis-communications-files-for.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/union-representing-closed-vertis-plant.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/02/may-closure-of-vertis-plant-in-medina.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/mpp-kim-craitor-champions-ex-employees.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/sudden-closure-of-canadas-only-vertis.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/vertis-set-to-close-dallas-plant-on.html

Vertis set to close Dallas plant on April Fool’s Day

According to the Dallas Business Journal, Vertis Communications will close its Dallas facility, laying off 27 workers, on Monday 1 April 2013. The company disclosed the plan in a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission.  The Dallas facility at 8000 Ambassador Road was one of four facilities left out of the recent purchase of Vertis by Quad/Graphics Inc., along with Vertis facilities in New Jersey, Ohio and Ontario, Canada. 

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/2013/01/vertis-to-close-dallas-facility-lay.html

I have been unable to uncover any further on-line news stories about the Dallas closure nor suggestions that it is causing anything near the furor of the Fort Erie, Ontario and Medina, Ohio closures.  Please drop me a line if you have more information.

Background on the other Vertis closures is available at:

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/vertis-communications-files-for.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/union-representing-closed-vertis-plant.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/02/may-closure-of-vertis-plant-in-medina.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/mpp-kim-craitor-champions-ex-employees.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/sudden-closure-of-canadas-only-vertis.html

Union representing closed Vertis plant workers and Quad/Graphics appear in Ontario court

Yesterday (Thursday) lawyers representing protesting ex-workers of the closed Vertis printing plant in Fort Erie, Ontario (who are members of CEP, the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union of Canada) and Quad/Graphics appeared in the Superior Court in St. Catharines, Ontario, to resolve issues arising from the workers’ continual picket line outside the closed plant.

The workers are protesting their treatment in January when their jobs were terminated without severance pay.  Quad/Graphics, who owns such assets inside the closed plant as equipment, paper, and ink, and is in the process of having these assets relocated, had filed a motion for an injunction, claiming the workers have no right to form a "blockade" preventing trucks going in and out of the plant, since their dispute is with Vertis not Quad/Graphics. 

But since the U.S. parent company of Vertis filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection last year and Vertis has told the ex-workers they have no money, the ex-workers are afraid these assets are their only potential source of recompense.  They don't want to see them removed until they are paid what they claim is legally owed to them, an amount estimated at around $2.7 million.

Justice Robert Nightingale postponed the hearing until Monday 11 March 2013 to give the union time to prepare its case. 

Meanwhile, lawyers for the two sides have agreed to try to come up with a mutually acceptable “picket protocol” that will include rules for how long the the protesters can stop a vehicle.
http://www.printaction.com/News/20130317-vertis-quad.html

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2013/03/07/former-vertis-workers-quadgraphics-head-to-court

http://www.forterietimes.ca/2013/03/07/former-vertis-workers-quadgraphics-head-to-court
http://www.bulletnewsniagara.ca/2013/03/07/labour-company-takes-picketing-vertis-employees-to-court-seeking-to-end-plant-gate-blockade/
http://www.wellandtribune.ca/2013/03/07/former-vertis-workers-quadgraphics-head-to-court

More background on this story is available at:

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/02/may-closure-of-vertis-plant-in-medina.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/mpp-kim-craitor-champions-ex-employees.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/sudden-closure-of-canadas-only-vertis.html

Updates are available at:
http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/ex-vertis-workers-in-fort-erie-post.html

http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/vertis-set-to-close-dallas-plant-on.html
http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/03/vertis-communications-files-for.html

Controversy over Vertis plant closures in Ohio and Ontario persists on line

My initial post on 6 February 2013 appeared as follows:
The closure of a Vertis Communications plant in Medina, Ohio has been scheduled for May 1^st  and will lay off 53 workers.  Based on an article in today's Medina Gazette, this matter seems to be attracting less controversy than the same company's January closure of their plant in Fort Erie, Ontario.

http://medinagazette.northcoastnow.com/2013/02/06/53-jobs-lost-after-sale-of-vertis-communications-in-medina/
http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/sudden-closure-of-canadas-only-vertis.html
http://vicg8.blogspot.ca/2013/01/mpp-kim-craitor-champions-ex-employees.html

Update on 13 February 2013:

Although a similar article published in yesterday's Medina Post does not mention any labour disputes, the reader comments that have accumulated since 6 February 2013, when the Medina Gazette article was published, suggest that ex-Vertis employees in Ohio may be encountering similar problems to those faced by ex-Vertis workers in Ontario.

Anonymous, who has worked at the Medina facility for a decade, reports that workers received “No severance, no warn pay, no vacation paid out, no straight answers on what was happening to the company for 6 months.”  S/he also claims that, in order to secure his bonus, their general manager informed workers falsely that if the company stayed profitable, there was a good chance it would remain open.  From social-media sources like this one, it still remains unclear what the legal status of the ex-Medina-workers is, whether they have taken any collective remedial action, or whether a union represents them.

Meanwhile, Mad In Canada and Rooster1966 report that the controversy at the Fort Erie plant has still not been resolved.  They say the picket line continues 24/7 outside the closed plant and aims to prevent owner Quad/Graphics from removing assets until ex-workers receive the entitlements they have legally earned.
http://medinagazette.northcoastnow.com/2013/02/06/53-jobs-lost-after-sale-of-vertis-communications-in-medina/   
http://www.thepostnewspapers.com/medina/local_news/article_8b6f38ce-7071-5878-8aa6-91a6f66c5d5b.html

Update on 8 March 2013:

Like the Medina Post, PIWorld.com has turned in another neutralized report on the Medina plant closure:
http://www.piworld.com/article/commercial-printing-news-briefs-printing-impressions-march-2013# 

The following is an Internet link to a letter dated 3 March 2013 from James A Thibert, General Manager, Fort Erie Economic Development and Tourism Corporation, outlining Mr. Thibert’s version of recent events:  http://www.redbulldiaries.ca/node/3025

Detailed information on the recent escalation of Ontario protests by ex-Vertis employees is available on the Website of CHCH Television (based in Hamilton, Ontario) at: http://www.chch.com/component/k2/itemlist/search?searchword=vertis+communications
http://www.chch.com/home/item/11669-vertis-workers-say-they-were-stiffed-on-severance

But at least someone is still happy with Quad/Graphics:  their shareholders.  The company enjoyed profits of $21 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 and on Monday March 4^th declared a quarterly dividend.  Shareholders of record on Monday, March 18th will be given a dividend of $0.30 per share on Friday, March 29th. 
http://sussex.patch.com/articles/quad-graphics-posts-4q-profit-sales-down-7
http://www.jagsreport.com/2013/03/quadgraphics-plans-quarterly-dividend-of-0-30-quad/