Tim Hortons has offered buyouts to 15 per cent of its total corporate workforce across all Canadian offices and regional branches.

The voluntary redundancy offers have also been extended to 15 managers in corporate-owned restaurants, but does not include sales staff at roughly 3,800 Tim Hortons franchises in Canada.

Tim Hortons currently has approximately 2,300 employees at its headquarters, regional offices and distribution centres across the country.

Documents obtained by The Star indicate all permanent full-time and part-time staff at Oakville below the rank of Vice President have been offered the deal. Michelle Robichaud, director of public affairs for Tim Hortons, confirmed the offer was made to 15 per cent of workers and said “just over three per cent” elected to take the offer.

Robichaud said the move was intended to furnish employees with the “generous financial means” to explore other career opportunities or pursue personal objectives.

The spokesperson added that Hortons is “working on bringing some additional shared services” to Oakville and that over 160 individuals in Oakville have been offered “promotions and new opportunities” since the company cut roughly 350 corporate staff following the merger of Burger King and Hortons to form Restaurant Brands International in December 2014.

When the merger was announced, an Industry Canada spokesman confirmed restrictions were placed on Burger King preventing them from axing more than 20 per cent of Tim Hortons’ “entire corporate footprint” across Canada.

Hortons is required to file an annual compliance report showing a commitment to maintaining 80 per cent of its corporate staff numbers across Canada.

Industry Canada can take legal action against the company should it violate those terms. The federal government previously took United States Steel Corp. to court in 2011 to ensure it adhered to its commitments.

Jake Enwright, press secretary to Industry Minister James Moore, could not say if the voluntary redundancy offering would breach the agreement, but assured The Star that the government has the mechanisms in place to ensure the commitments are upheld.

In May, a Tim Hortons spokesperson said the company had “made the strategic decision” to drive U.S. growth from Oakville.

When the deal to form the world’s third-largest restaurant company was signed in 2014, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives warned that Burger King’s owner 3G Capital, a Brazil-based investment firm, has previously outsourced and laid off staff to cut costs and manage debt.

On June 17 this year, Burger King CEO Daniel Schwartz told Tim Hortons Inc. shareholders that he’s focused on building profits, cutting costs and improving efficiency at the coffee chain.

A current Tim Hortons employee, who did not want to be named, alleges that more than 800 workers have left Oakville since the start of 2015, a figure that Robichaud denies.

Many have left voluntarily, the employee says, because they don’t want to transfer knowledge “knowing full well that they will be laid off in January.”

The employee said that “essentially everything is being outsourced department by department” and “everyone is demoralized and upset and stressed out beyond belief.”

Robichaud confirmed the option of outsourcing some corporate positions is being explored and the payroll department will be outsourced this fall, affecting five employees who Tim Hortons say have not “been asked to train replacement workers.”

“We are confident that these changes will continue to ensure that our new organization will be faster, more efficient and better positioned for continued momentum, growth and success,” Robichaud added.

Under the terms of the buy-out package offered, qualifying employees would receive three weeks salary per year of service, with a minimum of six weeks and maximum of 52 weeks.

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The agreement, offered to workers from June 22 to 29, would see workers leave the company between July 17 and August 28. The document says employees who take the offer “will receive salary continuance and other benefits” subject to meeting the agreement’s conditions.

The offer does not apply to workers on contract, temporary or hourly positions, or field-based employees. Neither does it apply to those based in regional offices that are paid by “any outside entity”.

With files from The Canadian Press and Lisa Wright.

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