UNEMPLOYED and waiting on hundreds of thousands in entitlements, former employees of Bruck Textiles have sent a message to Parliament: “Don’t let this happen again.”
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It has been almost three months since 59 workers were sacked from the Wangaratta mill, and this week Indi MP Cathy McGowan has asked the government to improve the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme.
“I call on the government to do more to ensure that companies genuinely make provisions for large redundancies so that it can genuinely become a scheme of last resort rather than simply a corporate offload,” she said.
The scheme is a government funded safety net that pays entitlements to workers who are left with no job and no redundancy when a company is liquidated.
However, the use of this safety net by Bruck Textile Technology has created some doubt for Ms McGowan and the Minister for Employment Eric Abetz.
Mr Abetz called on ASIC to investigate alleged “phoenixing”, whereby they are claimed to have planned a restructure in order to avoid paying worker entitlements.
“We, as a government, are concerned that there has been some manipulation of the corporate law in this area,” Mr Abetz said.
“Suffice to say that the entitlements of workers should be at the forefront of every company director’s mind and I’m not necessarily sure that it was in relation to Bruck.”
Ms McGowan has also called on the government to intervene in the liquidation process to allow the ASIC inquiry into the handling of Bruck to proceed.
This investigation can’t happen until the liquidators have finished their own reports, but that work has stalled because there are no more funds left in the company.
“Regarding the larger issue of Bruck’s action as a corporate entity, the redundant workers are angry that the taxpayer is carrying the financial burden for what has occurred,” Ms McGowan told Parliament.
“They believe that the company had a responsibility to meet its corporate fiduciary obligations.”
A petition with more than 70 signatures has been put to the Petitions Committee and although former workers are thankful for the $3.5 million in entitlements they have already received, about $400,000 is still owing to them.