Goodwill employees to have pay halted
Posted Jan 21, 2016 06:47:18 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Employees of Goodwill will not receive their pay on Friday, as expected for their regular pay cycle, said CEO Keiko Nakamura on Wednesday.
“More than 430 people affected by the closures, despite our best efforts, will not be paid on Friday,” Nakamura said in an email statement.
Nakamura said Goodwill is expecting to update all employees about the date of payroll deposits on Jan. 25.
Goodwill has closed 16 stores, 10 donation centres and two offices – affecting more than 430 workers – due to cash flow problems. It does not affect Goodwills in London, Sarnia, St. Catharines and Hamilton.
At a news conference on Monday, Nakamura said Goodwill is exploring options to deal with a “cash flow crisis.”
Nakamura said Goodwill had moved to cut costs by reducing overhead and also cut staff hours, describing it as a “very low margin operation” that was facing increasing competition.
A lawyer with the Canadian Airport Workers Union, which represents the workers, has said the workers were greeted with locked doors when they showed up for their shifts Sunday morning.
Nakamura said she has met with union leaders and has assured them that Goodwill is working with stakeholders and various levels of government to find a solution.
“In order to ensure that we were not asking staff to work at a time when we didn’t feel that we would be able to cover their costs, we had to close down the stores,” she said.
