Sears managers, execs will still pocket big cash bonuses even though retailer is closing

Sears Canada will pay a final $2.8 million in retention bonuses to 36 head office staff, even though the retailer's restructuring efforts failed and the company is closing its doors.

Promised bonuses were only supposed to be paid in full if the company found a way to survive. However, Sears got court approval on Wednesday to continue paying retention bonuses to key staff such as executives and managers who will now steer the retailer through the wind-down and liquidation process.

'A complete joke': Laid-off Sears workers say hardship fund cash amounts to nothing after EI cut

Laid-off Sears Canada workers say the hardship fund set up to help them is pointless because any payout counts as income, so it's deducted from their employment insurance benefits.

"You have to give it back. We are getting absolutely nothing," says Vera Asselin, a former inventory analyst at the company's head office in Toronto.

"It's a complete joke."

Here's How The Government Could Have Stopped Sears Canada Employees From Getting Fucked Over

When a big company like Sears Canada goes through tough times, public sympathy is usually with the workers who are losing their benefits, pensions, or severance. But the way the law is currently written means that, for the most part, people with deeper pockets get paid before employees do.

"What we have essentially is a regime that creates a priority of claims in any insolvency situation for who gets paid out," Mark Rowlinson, a labour lawyer and policy researcher at the United Steelworkers union, told BuzzFeed Canada.

Sears managers to earn thousands in bonuses while laid-off workers get no severance

Sears Canada plans to dole out big bonuses to senior management while the retailer restructures, even as thousands of laid-off workers aren't being paid severance.

According to court documents, Sears will pay up to $7.6 million in retention bonuses to 43 executives and senior managers at the company's head office in Toronto. That works out to an average of $176,744 per employee, although it's unlikely the money will be divided up so evenly.

Disney, Wal-Mart, Sears used deadly Bangladeshi factory

Amid the ash, broken glass and melted sewing machines at what is left of the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory in Bangladesh, there are piles of children's shorts bearing Wal-Mart's Faded Glory brand.

There were also shorts from hip-hop star Sean Combs's ENYCE label lying on the floor and stacked in cartons.