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Canadian Toner & Ink Remanufacture Closure Shocks Worker
Ribbons Recycled closure shocks worker
By Remo ZaccagnaA little more than a month ago, Darren Woods and his fiancee moved to Hantsport from Dartmouth to be closer to his Annapolis Valley clients.
Things were going relatively well until Monday when, much to his surprise, he discovered that his longtime employer, Ribbons Recycled Inc., had closed its doors.
A letter posted on the company’s front door from the Stewart McKelvey law firm, on behalf of Dundee REIT, property owner of 81 Wright Ave. in Burnside Park, said that the lease had been terminated.
The letter said that the grounds for the lease termination were $39, 837.34 in unpaid rent.
“I was at work Monday making my sales route here in the Valley and I got an email from (company owner Don MacKinnon) saying that the landlord … changed the locks on the doors and all was forsaken,” Woods said in an interview.
“We were pressured to meet a higher and higher quota each month, and to turn around and do this, with no warning. He knew it was coming because he had notification from the landlord that he was going to come in and change the locks if they didn’t pay the rent, but he never told us.”
Woods had been with Ribbons Recycled, which remanufactures toner and ink cartridges, for six years, working in production, shipping and receiving and, finally, sales.
“I would not have left the city had I known this job would end like this.”
Many of the company’s 14 employees were owed thousands of dollars in bonuses, back wages and vacation pay, Woods said.
Several employees, including Woods, will be meeting with the provincial Labour Board on Thursday to file a complaint regarding owed wages, vacation pay and severance, he said.
“One of them is owed close to $10,000 in bonuses that he’s never received.”
The employees are concerned they will never see that money now that the doors have been shuttered, he said.
But MacKinnon, who runs the business with his wife, Frances, disputed those allegations.
“They’ll be paid in the next few days, and most of them have been. There’s very little left,” MacKinnon said in an interview.
Founded in 1993, the company, which has clients in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario, has had financial difficulty before.
According to a document obtained from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada, the company filed for a commercial proposal in 2009.
At the time, the company had liabilities that totalled $476,798.
MacKinnon said he is working on resolving the issue in the next few days and that permanent closure “is not a certainty yet.”
“Give me a call back in about a week and I’ll give you a better answer,” he said, refusing to get into specifics.
“That’s (between) my business and the landlord.”
Meanwhile, Woods said he is looking to move on but is worried he will not get the required documentation.
“The only thing I want from that man is my record of employment right now, and I can’t even get that. (I need that) in order to collect EI right now, but I can’t get it.”
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