Image Credit: Kent Simmonds / CFJC Today
USW LOCAL 1-417

Severance situation looking grim for Kamloops Hudson’s Bay employees

Jun 12, 2025 | 4:36 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops was included in the recent closure of Hudson’s Bay stores across Canada and the union representing local employees says there’s still no confirmation on what kind of settlement they may or may not receive.

United Steelworkers Local 1-417 Financial Secretary Jordan Lawrence says the union’s lawyer isn’t confident any money will be left to give a proper payout and workers will likely have to rely on federal wage protections. The situation has compounded their disappointment.

Lawrence notes the last several weeks of liquidation sale operations brought on some difficult emotions for longer term employees.

“These people, especially the people who have worked there for 20, 25 years, they knew their shoppers. They knew the people who came in all the time, the loyal people,” he notes. “The people who were there, they told me flat out, ‘These aren’t our shoppers. These are people coming to find a bargain. They don’t care about the employees. They don’t care about the company. They’re just looking to come find something’ and that was the state of the whole store — it was ripped apart. It looked like a bomb went off.”

As far as the union is aware, pensions are protected. But Lawrence says the 35-plus people who worked there still don’t know exactly how much severance they’ll be getting.

“Our lawyer has told us he believes there is a minute chance that they will get any money,” adds Lawrence. Members will likely need to apply for the Wage Earner Protection Program, which is a federal fund for workers of bankrupt employers. But even that maxes out at around $8,800.

“I would say a majority of employees, that would match their severance, but for a good number of employees, it’s not going to come close to what severance would be,” he says.

The shutdown comes a year after Kamloops Bay workers went on strike for 164 days. The union says this closure would have happened even without the local job action, but Lawrence also says the strike over wages and benefits could have been avoided entirely if they had been shown the company’s books.

“Because they never said they couldn’t, they just said they wouldn’t,” he reiterates, “and if they told us they couldn’t and they showed us on paper, we would have never gone on strike.”

Lawrence says they don’t have any exact date for when they’ll hear back on final payouts and regardless of when that happens, staff of the historic retailer are left navigating the job market.

“It’s disappointing, as a Canadian. I mean this is an institution that’s been around for almost 400 years and it only took under 20 years of being American-owned and this is where it is,” he adds.