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Directors bankrupt company -& exploit staff- again

anon@indymedia.org (Jonathan) | 25.06.2012 22:55 | London

Company Directors took advantage of their workers by withholding their wages and exploiting legal loopholes to avoid paying what was owed. The Government and the local MP refused to help. Now the same Directors have used the same scam to exploit yet more workers. When will the Government do something?

Back in 2007, unscrupulous Directors of a company manufacturing tubular glass vials took advantage of about fifty-five workers (many of whom don’t speak English as a first language), when they claimed they were having temporary cash flow problems - allegedly due to a slow-paying customer – and couldn’t pay employees wages for many months.
However, it later transpired that the promises to pay back money that was owed were worthless, and that the Directors had no intention of paying their debts; instead putting the company into Administration, after ignoring staff pleas for financial help, grievance letters, Employment Tribunal claims, Solicitor’s letters and the involvement of ACAS.
Former employees complained to the Government Insolvency Service, who showed no interest in the matter, and then to the former Harrow East MP, Tony McNulty, who also ignored letters sent to him.
In a cruel twist of fate, the Director’s then bought back the assets of the company, and quickly reopened under a different name - carrying on the same line of business, using the same plant and machinery, operating from the same premises, with the same Top management and Shareholders, as well as the same customers and suppliers.
So, unemployed workers wrote to the current Harrow East MP, Bob Blackman for help with their problems. But after many many months of reminders and requests for acknowledgement, Bob Blackman eventually wrote back, claiming that the matter “was not in the Public interest”, and wouldn’t respond further.
Former employees shocked at the cavalier attitude of their local MP, who they thought would represent their interests in Parliament, then went on to form the Impeach Bob Blackman campaign - believing that someone with so little concern for their constituents was completely unfit for Public office http://bobblackmanmp.info/
You might think that the story would end there, but we have since discovered that the phoenix company set up by the former Directors has just recently passed into insolvency, leaving yet more workers unemployed, having been cheated them out of their wages too.
Then, to make matters worse, it has just been revealed to us that since there is no legislation to stop Employers treating their staff this badly, the same Directors are now planning to carry out the exact same scam for a third time.
We say: “It is unbelievable that the Government would allow this sort of unprincipled behaviour by company Directors to go unchecked, and outrageous that Mr Blackman should show such little interest in the problems of the constituents that he was elected to represent.”
A petition to have Bob Blackman impeached is available to be signed at: http://bobblackmanmp.info/petition.html


anon@indymedia.org (Jonathan)
- Original article on IMC London: http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12460