Bounced checks and application denials have left Metro newspaper handout workers without due compensation and without any proper recourse to claim for the unpaid wages.

At the centre of this is Thinkbox National Marketing Inc., a company that president Emily Psimoulis described as specializing in experiential marketing, stunts, sampling, and activation services, which was contracted by Metro Canada to handout newspapers in major metropolitan centres coast to coast.

The company seemed a heralded success having expanded across Canada with eight offices from Vancouver to Halifax since first incorporation in July 2006, landing clients Warner Brothers, Mobilicity, Happy Planet and Metro Canada, which is owned by Toronto Star‘s parent company Star Media Group, to name a few.

But, last fall, Vancouver employees — newspaper handouts specifically — began to complain about work going unpaid, checks bouncing and employment statuses challenged, for exampling, classifying all workers as contractors even though they would fall under regular worker category according to BC Employment standards.

One worker, a recent immigrant, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of any future employment repercussions, stated, according to translated words: “Most of the workers [are] immigrants, and, many of them [didn’t] know their labour rights and [couldn’t] speak much English. They’ve been all left destitute because of ThinkBox’s actions.”

Fast-forward to Jan. 8, 2015, when a Notice of Bankruptcy was evidently filed in the City of Mississauga for Thinkbox National Marketing Inc.
No wonder then that telephone calls to Thinkbox’s Vancouver office rendered a “not-in-service” message and that the company’s site at www.thinkboxnational.com jumped to an unavailable page request.

While Corporations Canada, as of Apr. 20, 2015, still designates Thinkbox National Marketing Inc. as being an active corporation, the marketing and consultancy company simply no longer exists.

From handing out papers in the fall of 2014 to bankruptcy months later is a simply stunning event, especially a national brand stretching nationwide, from the west coast to the Atlantic.

And so what about compensation for the work and services rendered by those newspaper handouts that, in the dark of early morning, on a near daily basis, stood passing out newspapers to commuters for hours at a time?

Service Canada’s Wage Earner Protection Program (WEPP) seemed an adequate route, as it’s a program that is designed to afford compensation to eligible workers for unpaid wages, vacation, severance and termination pay that is deemed owed.

However, following submission to the WEPP for compensation, Service Canada returned a notice of denied application citing that, “The information submitted in [the] application could not be validated with the trustee or receiver administering the bankruptcy or receivership of [the] former employer.”
According to the same employee quoted above, no appeals were made and the decision was left as is.

The trustee in the matter MNP Ltd., a national corporate recovery and restructuring company with offices in six provinces across Canada, from B.C. to Quebec, could not be reached for comment.

Unclear in all of this is what information was provided in the submission to WEPP that could not be validated.

More to come.

[Photo Credit: Boris Mann/Flickr]