Laura Collison spent most of her adult life working at Wingham’s Wescast plant before she and 180 of her fellow Wescast workers were laid off nearly two years ago.
“You just got shoved out the door and nothing more. Forty-four years of devoting your life, and that’s what they want to do to you,” said Collison.
Wescast closed the company’s foundry for making exhaust manifolds on July 27, 2023. The temporary layoff, as described by the company, turned permanent on April 1, 2024, triggering enhanced severance payments and termination pay for 180 fired workers.
But the payments never came, prompting a union rally outside Wescast, Wingham’s largest employer, last spring.
“A lot of people have been, you know, put out by this. Not only did they not pay the severance, but they were also holding the pensions kind of ransom from the people as well. It’s kind of, I’m guessing the tactic to, you know, starve us out,” said Joel Sutton, who worked at Wescast for 30 years, before being laid off in July 2023.
Labour officials got involved, and last week, an impartial arbitrator ordered Wescast and its parent company Sichuan Bohong to pay the company’s terminated workers $15 million dollars in enhanced severance, termination pay, and interest.
For many workers with decades of employment at Wescast, it means six-figure payouts, each.
“There were a lot of employees that were, you know, ready to retire who were forced to look for another job. So, now they’ll finally be able to get some money in their pockets,” said Sutton, who was also the Local 4207 Unifor plant chair.
“It should have never happened like this. We have a collective agreement at Wescast, and they violated our collective agreement along with labour laws,” said Collison.
Unifor, who represent Wescast’s unionized workers, calls the arbitration settlement ‘precedent setting.’
“We simply cannot overstate the scale or importance of this victory. It is one of the largest and most significant wins for our members who deserve our deepest gratitude for their courage and persistence in this nearly two-year long fight,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne.
At last count, a handful of workers remain at Wescast’s Wingham machining plant, but the July 2023 foundry closure and 180-person layoff, and subsequent severance fight – now settlement, is a bitter end to what was a homegrown success story.
Wescast was founded in 1902 in Wingham as a wood stove manufacturer. The company transitioned to automotive parts in the 1970s, and employed over 800 people at its peak in the late 90s.
For Collison and Sutton, and many former Wescast workers, their tenure ends in anger and mistrust of the company they worry will not pay them what they are owed, despite the arbitrator’s ruling.
“Everyone’s extremely happy about it. I’ll be 100 per cent happy about it when I see the severance and termination pay come to all the employees that deserve this,” said Collison.
“This is a relief, but it’s not done yet,” said Sutton.
Collison said she’s been told that Wescast has until Feb. 28 to pay workers the $15 million in severance and termination pay they are owed.
