Deco strong until Doug Ford left, says ex-staffer
Entry into politics left others in charge of company
TORONTO • The money was too good to pass up so, in late 2016, Mike Griffin returned for a second stint at the Chicago branch of Deco Labels, lured away from another firm.
Four months later, with Deco struggling to turn a profit, the company owned by Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford abruptly showed Griffin the door.
“They said ‘We can’t afford you, we’re not making the profits we thought we’d make,’ and they cut me loose,” the ex-production manager recalled Tuesday.
It was more proof for the American of how the company had changed since Ford had turned his attention to politics.
“He basically withdrew out of the company and he let his (Chicago) v.p. and everybody else run the company, and I just think it was a very, very bad choice,” said Griffin, now production manager at a Texas label maker.
He related his story as a surprise lawsuit accuses Doug and brother Randy of essentially running Deco into the ground, then raiding the family’s investment fund to shore it up. It was filed by Renata Ford, widow of Doug’s late brother Rob, and alleges she has been denied the assets the ex-Toronto mayor left her.
The travails of Deco and the man who remains its president are more than mere trivia in the campaign for Thursday’s election. Ford himself has made the firm an issue, regularly citing his experience there as the kind of qualification needed to put the debt-ridden province in order.
On Tuesday, he called the allegations — unproven in court — completely false, and a pressure tactic by his sister-in-law’s lawyers. Griffin and another former executive offered a more nuanced view of his role in the company Tuesday.
The Tory chief was once an accomplished businessman, but as he migrated toward a political life, Deco suffered under bosses who lacked his skills, they say.
The lawsuit filed by Renata Ford last Friday charges that, as executors of Rob’s will, Doug and Randy had deprived the widow of her proper inheritance. It alleged that mismanagement by Doug and Randy — Deco’s other owner — had led to a succession of losses in Toronto — even as the proprietors pulled down “extravagant” salaries.
An emotional Ford firmly rejected the charges Tuesday, repeating his campaign’s assertion that lawyers for Renata had used the threat of a lawsuit to try to get the Fords to “pay up.”
“It’s heartbreaking that she would want to go down this avenue, three days before the election,” said Ford, his voice breaking slightly. “Our family has always stood behind (Rob’s) kids, always stood behind Renata, we never wavered. And we’re shocked … we’re floored.”
Griffin thought Doug Ford was a good manager when he first worked at Deco, for six years in the early and mid-2000s. Doug — who launched the company’s U.S. presence — would work in Chicago from Thursday to Sunday every week, a hands-on owner who knew the business inside-out, he said.
As a sign of how things changed under local management, Griffin says the Chicago plant fired close to a dozen people a couple of years ago, one week before Christmas. Doug Ford called him to ask why no one was responding to the help-wanted ads to find replacements.
“I had to tell him ‘Nobody I know will work for you, because of the way you treat your employees’,” said Griffin, then at another company.
Lured back in 2016 with a $10,000 salary top-up, Griffin was told how many labels his team would have to generate for Deco to make a profit. Despite changing production processes and pushing the machines harder, Griffin said, the firm never came close.
Asked specifically about how the former Deco employee who spoke with the Post characterized Ford’s management of the business, a Ford campaign spokesperson would not comment. Randy Ford could not be reached for comment.
IT’S HEARTBREAKING THAT SHE WOULD WANT TO GO DOWN THIS AVENUE, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTION.