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THE treatment of workers who lost their jobs amid the collapse of outsourcing giant Carillion was an “absolute disgrace,” the TUC’s Yorkshire and the Humber regional conference heard at the weekend.
A catalogue of ill-treatment of redundant employees was revealed at the annual gathering in Harrogate on Saturday.
Neil Derrick, Yorkshire and North Derbyshire regional secretary of general union GMB, said Carillion’s collapse had left the jobs of 20,000 workers in jeopardy.
Among them were staff employed by Carillion on cleaning and catering contracts at seven schools in Leeds who learned of the company’s collapse from a news bulletin, Mr Derrick told the conference.
They were told to keep working and three weeks later were informed that another contractor, Mitie, had taken over.
“They were told to report for duty as normal on February 19,” he said.
“Mitie went round the schools taking down Carillion noticeboards and leaving boxes full of new employment contracts and staff handbooks.
“But Mitie don’t do catering, so Chartwells turned up in schools as Mitie have subcontracted the catering contract to Chartwells.
“So Chartwells also deliver new contracts for our members which they find waiting for them when they return to work on February 19.
“Both Mitie and Chartwells ask our members to sign the new contracts or go home. They are given no time to consider and no copy to take away.”
Mr Derrick said staff were told that regulations protecting workers whose jobs are transferred from one employer to another did not apply, and that they had lost continuity of service — despite some staff having worked in their jobs for 20 years.
The workers were put on three months’ “probation,” told that holiday entitlement was changing, that they would be paid every four weeks, instead of every two, and that they had to prove to their new bosses that they had the right to work in Britain.
He said the workers were left “dazed and confused.”
GMB won unanimous backing for a call to Labour councils in the region to cease awarding public contracts to privateers and to take existing contracts back in-house.
