March 14, 2001
To: Pension Plan Members and Retirees
Wajax Pension Surplus Challenge
We feel it is time to give you an update of events regarding our efforts
to date.
1. Upon receiving the notice of the company's intention to change the
pension plan a few of the employees from across the country discussed the impact
of this change including the fact there was a known surplus. They
approached Messrs. Cunningham and Donaldson who agreed to investigate their
options. Mr. Donaldson phoned Mr. Ball and was informed that
management considered this surplus theirs and not the employees. Then a
very well known legal firm was asked their opinion of the company's action and
we were told there had been cases such as Wajax's where the employees had
been awarded the surplus and others where they had not. They suggested on
the initial evidence that we should move forward on our claim and that we needed
some financial support and as much documentation on the plan as possible to give
them an objective view of our chances. Thus we did the following:
2. We sent out our infamous E-Mail on Dec 15,
2000 soliciting donations toward these costs. By the returns we
would be able to gauge just how much support our committee's actions had
amongst the Pension Plan members. We had set a number of returns as a
minimum support that we felt we had to reach or we would have abandoned any
further efforts.
We are pleased to report that we have far surpassed this target in fact we are
astounded with the support that has been shown.
3. We have officially engaged the legal firm of Harbottle and
Co., a very well respected and experienced firm in this field to represent us.
4. We have rounded up hundreds of documents, files, letters and
statements from 1967 to date pertaining to the plan. We have presented
these to our legal representatives to analyze. We expect their
recommendations shortly as to our next step.
Your Ad Hoc Committee
If you have not contributed your $100. towards this cause,
please do so now. (click
here)
