Ex-LWR owner’s company collapse no surprise

Ex LWR owner’s Australia company collapse no surprise

The National Distribution Union (New Zealand) is concerned but not surprised that another Ken Anderson company has collapsed, this time the Scallywag Sock company in Melbourne.

Ken Anderson was the owner of LWR Group of companies in New Zealand that went into receivership in April last year, allegedly owing Westpac NZ over $100 million and the workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and redundancy pay. The receivers have subsequently reported Ken Anderson to the Serious Fraud Office in New Zealand.

“The NDU has been notified by our Australian sister union that 60 workers at Scallywags lost their jobs last week,” said Robert Reid, General Secretary of the NDU.

“We are told that the staff are owed more than $500,000 in unpaid superannuation contributions, long service leave, wages and redundancy payments.”

“Our heart goes out to those Australian workers who have lost their jobs in similar circumstances to the LWR job massacre in New Zealand last year,” Robert Reid said.

Meanwhile the NDU was told yesterday that former workers from the Wairarapa Bouzaid and Ballaben factory of LWR would receive a final payment of 2.5 cents in the dollar for their unpaid wages and redundancy pay, bringing the total payment to 72.5 cents in the dollar.

“The Wairarapa workers feel very aggrieved that they have not received the full 100 cents in the dollar as have the direct former employees of LWR in Christchurch.

“Unfortunately our legal advice is that there is little that we can do regarding this discrimination except to wait for the outcome of the Serious Fraud Office investigations,” Robert Reid said.

The union’s support centre for redundant workers at LWR in Christchurch has been very successful in finding work for the redundant Christchurch workers over the past year. Of the 206 redundant workers making contact with the union support centre 180 have found work, Robert Reid said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media