Another week..another big company cuts jobs

pazza

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Been a pretty rough period in Melbourne's north and west as of late.

A few weeks ago, many would be aware of the 700 jobs who went at Kodak in Coburg. Thankfully, Kodak have come to the party to a point in terms of redundancy payments, yet, those payments aren't really enough.

Now we find out, just yesterday that GUD at Tottenham, which amongst other things, help to make Sunbeam appliances and Ryco oil filters, is about to be come a warehouse and not a manufacturing plant, causing the loss of another 100 jobs. The decision was made in February, but, amazingly, only announced yesterday. The company is refusing flat blank to pay redundancy payouts to the employees it is giving the arse to.

Do we need more protection of entitlements for our workforce, in our industrial relations system?
 

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campbell

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#2
pazza said:
Been a pretty rough period in Melbourne's north and west as of late.

A few weeks ago, many would be aware of the 700 jobs who went at Kodak in Coburg. Thankfully, Kodak have come to the party to a point in terms of redundancy payments, yet, those payments aren't really enough.

Now we find out, just yesterday that GUD at Tottenham, which amongst other things, help to make Sunbeam appliances and Ryco oil filters, is about to be come a warehouse and not a manufacturing plant, causing the loss of another 100 jobs. The decision was made in February, but, amazingly, only announced yesterday. The company is refusing flat blank to pay redundancy payouts to the employees it is giving the arse to.

Do we need more protection of entitlements for our workforce, in our industrial relations system?


Pity they don't work for Mr Howards brothers company then the governemnt will pay the legal entitlements for them.

legally they have to pay redundency and other entitlements.Whether they do is another thing, busniss large or small get away with it all the time.
 

Ray Nolan

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#3
campbell said:
Pity they don't work for Mr Howards brothers company then the governemnt will pay the legal entitlements for them.

legally they have to pay redundency and other entitlements.Whether they do is another thing, busniss large or small get away with it all the time.
The GEERS scheme set up by the Howard Government in the wake of Stan Howard's business going belly up means that the workers will get at least some of their entitlements paid out by the Government. That's better than it used to be when they would get jack schizen.
 

medusala

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#4
pazza said:
Do we need more protection of entitlements for our workforce, in our industrial relations system?
No we do not. As long as their super is safe that should be it. It will only add to the cost burden of business and thus the cost of employment will rise. Many like to whinge about employees losing pay when a company goes broke but forget all the small businesses that get screwed and generally with far more at stake than the employees. If those small business go broke then their employees will get the sack as well.
 

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#5
medusala said:
No we do not. As long as their super is safe that should be it. It will only add to the cost burden of business and thus the cost of employment will rise. Many like to whinge about employees losing pay when a company goes broke but forget all the small businesses that get screwed and generally with far more at stake than the employees. If those small business go broke then their employees will get the sack as well.
Surely they should also get paid out any holiday pay owing too?

I agree that just because your company closes you don;t deserve a golden handshake of a years pay or anything. But surely the initial post referred to "entitlements" which means they are really yours and not the company's.
 

medusala

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#6
funkyfreo said:
Surely they should also get paid out any holiday pay owing too?

I agree that just because your company closes you don;t deserve a golden handshake of a years pay or anything. But surely the initial post referred to "entitlements" which means they are really yours and not the company's.
I dont disagree with you FF, the employees are all entitled to holiday pay etc its just a matter of whether or not a scheme should be in place to protect those entitlements. I thought the Ansett scheme was a disgrace. Taxpayers should not fund such schemes. If my small business went broke would the govt have protected the entitlements of my staff? One major cause of small businesses going broke is that they have major creditors that wont or cant pay their debts. Is the govt going to put in a scheme to stop this? Of course they wouldnt. If the co goes broke then the employees have to get in line with the rest of the creditors. I may well be wrong here but dont they come after secured creditors, the taxman and the liquidator but before unsecured creditors?
 

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#7
pazza said:
Thankfully, Kodak have come to the party to a point in terms of redundancy payments, yet, those payments aren't really enough.
What more should they get then, assuming they get all there leave entitlements, etc? A free digital camera? A house?

OK the Kodak closure is primarily due to technological change (ie, digital cameras).

As for the plant the Tottenham, I would mind betting they're closing it because it's cheaper to make "widgets" offshore? And why would it be cheaper to make widgets offshore? Wouldn't have anything to do with the singificantly higher (like 20x) labour costs in Australia (include entitlements in that equation if you like) the unions have fought for and achieved would it? Who wins now smart ones?
 

funkyfreo

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#8
medusala said:
I dont disagree with you FF, the employees are all entitled to holiday pay etc its just a matter of whether or not a scheme should be in place to protect those entitlements. I thought the Ansett scheme was a disgrace. Taxpayers should not fund such schemes. If my small business went broke would the govt have protected the entitlements of my staff? One major cause of small businesses going broke is that they have major creditors that wont or cant pay their debts. Is the govt going to put in a scheme to stop this? Of course they wouldnt. If the co goes broke then the employees have to get in line with the rest of the creditors. I may well be wrong here but dont they come after secured creditors, the taxman and the liquidator but before unsecured creditors?
That is not a great line of priority if you are the worker:)

But we are not really talking about small busininess here.Anyway, in this case Kodak is not going broke. Just closing... If the taxman comes 1st then personally I have no problem with a taxpayer funded entitlements guarentee. But that runs into problems because a company can go broke guilt-free knowing taxman picks up the tab.
 

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#9
medusala said:
I thought the Ansett scheme was a disgrace. Taxpayers should not fund such schemes.... I may well be wrong here but dont they come after secured creditors, the taxman and the liquidator but before unsecured creditors?
You beat me to it on the Ansett one.

Think the order of precedence is liquidator gets first cut of the pie, then employees, then creditors then the taxman.

I worked for a small business once which went under and basically the liquidator did his job only until the money was used up (for him), and nobody else got anything - and I certainly couldn't line up for an "Ansettesque" handout from the taxpayer. Then of course this guy simply wiped his debts and started trading under a new name (and went broke again!) - now when are they going to stop that I wonder?

Bugger, they just got Lehamann.
 
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