Algoma Steel CEO walks away with $6.8 million in wake of 1,000 layoffs and billion-dollar loss

TORONTO – The United Steelworkers union (USW) released the following statement today regarding the disclosure of 2025 executive compensation packages at Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie:

In December 2025, mere days before Christmas, Algoma Steel – under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Michael Garcia – announced that more than 1,000 workers at its Sault Ste. Marie operations would be laid off.

Workers, their families and the entire community were devastated by the news, as well as the announcement’s brutally callous timing. With Algoma – the city’s largest employer – on the verge of recording an annual loss of nearly $1 billion, many in Sault Ste. Marie were left reeling and worried for their and the community’s future.

Not everyone, however.

In particular, Algoma’s CEO, who had previously decided he would retire at the end of 2025, was set to receive a multimillion-dollar compensation package approved by Algoma’s board of directors.

The details of Garcia’s compensation have now been released and, as many suspected, they are egregious, considering the circumstances.

Despite Algoma’s 1,000 job cuts and its $985-million loss under Garcia’s watch, the departing CEO actually was awarded a substantial increase in compensation in 2025.

Garcia walked away with $6.82 million in total compensation last year, which represents an increase of 22.2% from the previous year ($5.58 million) and a whopping 130% more than he received two years earlier ($2.96 million).

Garcia’s 2025 package included a base salary of $1.07 million and $5.75 million in other forms of compensation.

To put this compensation package into the context of the economic realities faced by regular working people:

• Garcia’s base salary alone provided him with a bi-weekly paycheque of over $41,000 – more than millions of Canadians earn in an entire year.
  
• Garcia’s 2025 compensation package amounts to more than double the lifetime earnings of the average Canadian retiring today.

However, according to Algoma Steel’s board, Garcia actually could have been “entitled” to receive more than the $6.82 million he walked away with.

“The economic terms agreed with Mr. Garcia were materially lower than those to which he would have otherwise been entitled under the termination without cause provisions of his employment agreement with the Company,” Algoma Steel states in its executive compensation disclosures.

To the contrary, the United Steelworkers union, which represents the vast majority of Algoma Steel employees, believes it is unacceptable for top corporate executives to be awarded huge compensation increases during a period of mass layoffs and poor financial results.

It is outrageous to attempt to justify a CEO’s 130% compensation increase over two years, while hundreds of workers have lost their livelihoods and a community’s economic future is at stake.

USW members and all working families in Sault Ste. Marie deserve more respect and a greater commitment to corporate accountability and responsibility from Algoma Steel, a company that accepted nearly $1 billion in public funding before cutting so many jobs and simultaneously rewarding its CEO so handsomely.

Marty Warren
National Director for Canada
United Steelworkers

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