05) DEFEHR FURNITURE AXES HUNDREDS

(The following article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

PV Manitoba bureau

WINNIPEG - It's like a scene from an old Depression era movie. DeFehr Furniture Ltd. is closing down one of its two factories in Winnipeg, and another in Morden, Manitoba. Early reports said 80-85 would lose their jobs (65 in Morden, 15 in Transcona), but it has turned out to be much larger. The move tossed out 326 workers and laid off 42 "temporarily" as the Logic division plant in Transcona is closed and operations merged with its last Winnipeg factory in East Kildonan. That's 368 workers, or nearly half of the 900 workers employed.  

     DeFehr was split off from Palliser Furniture in 2004 as part of a restructuring - meaning a big axe for jobs and the change to piecework from the former hourly wage system for production workers at DeFehr. Palliser has remained afloat without the heavy ballast of the DeFehr casegoods division (desks, beds, dressers etc.), but much of its production is in four Mexican plants as compared to two Canadian upholstery plants in Winnipeg.

     Palliser is owned by Art DeFehr. The casegoods division was sold to Art's brother Frank, and passed on to Frank's son Andy DeFehr. Meanwhile, DeFehr Furniture Ltd. slowed the bleeding but still lost money. According to workers on the floor, management remained top heavy and expected all cuts to be borne by the production worker level.  

     A high Canadian dollar, the housing market crash in the U.S. and the credit crisis has made it hard for furniture retailers and manufacturers to find money to operate. The corporation was granted court credit protection while it "restructures," i.e. purges workers and likely speeds up production lines and cuts wages and piece rates yet again.

     Early newspaper reports say that workers with over 25 years experience will find jobs in the remaining factory. But office and factory floor workers are not unionized. Many are new immigrants and refugees.

     The NDP government only shrugged after years of propping up the company with loans and tax dollars. The minister responsible, Andrew Swan, is working with a faith-based job agency, Opportunities, for Employment to help the sacked workers. Swan suggested that the former DeFehr workers can become farm labourers, (we assume to be exploited yet again).  

     A former employee posted on a web site that workers with 20-plus years were let go with no severance package, just the 12 weeks notice or hopefully 12 weeks pay in lieu of notice required by law.

Another post describes management lying to workers in an assembled meeting that their jobs were secure, not once, but twice the previous month while court protection was sought. With credit protection secured, Sept. 29 saw a sudden parade of workers going to the office to get their pink slips and escorted to their lockers. This parade, a repeat of past layoffs, spoke volumes of the betrayal as any severance evaporated. One comment up was that the only furniture DeFehr will still make in Canada will be pallets and skids!