f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Woolworths workers win 'payout'

Well what a surprise! The administrators of Woolworths have been fiound to have acted incorrectly over the redundancy of 24000 Woolworths employees when the firm closed in 2008 and now £67m is to be made out to them..... by the taxpayer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why the hell isn't this being paid by the administrators who are happy enough to bleed every company dry they get called in to wind up and are always first in line when it comes to getting paid.

Would be nice if the government decided to pursue them for the money rather than just let yet more taxpayers' money disappear out of the bank without so much as raising an eyebrow!

Lee247

I despair of this Country.
Sorry to go off track, but it's just been on the news about Soldiers serving abroad, if they don't get their tax returns in on time, they will be fined £100. Obviously this is why, so the Revenue can gather as much as possible to give to "worthy" causes

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Pretty damn typical of administrators. They make a lot of money for very little work, at normally the money they get is at other people's expense

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I agree that Deloitte should foot the bill.

Especally when they racked up a £10million bill for basic donkey work and faffing around.

Leslie

It is part of an administrator's training to have that part of the brain removed which has any feelings for other people for whom they can cause major problems with their footling regulations which they must spend their time in the bath trying to think up in order to impress their bosses.

Les

mrmadcap

What are you moaning about because as a tax payer you clearly don't have an issue with subsidising all the immigrants coming into the country and going straight to benefit.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Newsflash for Mr. ********: believe it or not there is more wrong with the country than just the section of the immigrant community that cheat the benefit system!!

Now if you don't want to accept that then fine, but in that case maybe you can refrain from posting off topic nonsense like this on other threads. Stick to your 'immigrants are the root of all evil' type threads and I am sure you will be very happy

mrmadcap

So you don't mind subsidising the world through your hard earned but are not happy about helping a few unfortunates that have been made redundant.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

You are just playing at being a troll now!

1) Where have I said I don't want these people to receive a payout? Nowhere have I said that, I just think the administrators who messed up should be the ones paying, not the tax payer. That was clear to anyone but you in my original post and no one else on this thread seems to be struggling with it, just you!!!

2) Subsidising the world? LOL! Are you for real??? You are the one with the 'problem' with immigrants not me. I don't like benefit cheats no matter who they are. You and your band of merry bigots on the other thread seem to be fixated on the ones that are not from this country thereby leaving me to deduce that you don't mind the section of the indigenous population who cheat the system. That is a very strange set of values seeing as the latter outweigh the former by quite some margin! Having said that what you choose as a set of values to judge the world by is up to you, I don't have to like it though!

mrmadcap

You are the bigot because you begrudge helping people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Why shouldn't the tax payer help them? After all, it was the tax payer that bailed out the banks.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Well why shouldn't the taxpayer help the immigrants then. After all it was the taxpayer that bailed out the banks

mrmadcap

Because they haven't contributed to the system. And your so called ingenouse population on benefit? Well their ancestors probably shaped and died for the society and freedoms we enjoy today.

Your so called jobless skilless immigrant friends with their own prejudice have contributed nothing.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

OK well I specifically mentioned benefit cheats so what you are saying is that you think it's OK for people to cheat the benefit system if their ancestors fought in one of the two world wars. That is some twisted logic .... oh and plenty of immigrants had families that fought for the allies in the world wars, but let's not let that get in the way of a good and utterly ridiculous rant eh?

The only prejudice I can detect here is that of yours. Sure some people including immigrants will be milking the system, others will have been working here and lost their jobs, others are gainfully employed. So in your lovely little far right world what happens when an immigrant net contributor loses their job and becomes reliant on the benfit system for a while... wait until they have taken as much as they contributed and then send them back to where they came from I suppose!

P.S. Extra points for the worst spelling of indigenous I have ever seen

Gordo

Does feel like the administrators should pay up - it's their problem as to whether they've have professional indemnity insurance for this or not, but it's still their liability.

Gordo

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Exactly! Can't work out why no one seems to be saying this. You'd think the country had a surplus the way the politicians behave sometimes!

mrmadcap

The old boring spelling dig when you explanations and excuses don't stack up

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

One postscript about your woeful command of English and a raft of logical comments on the points you raise and you choose to pick on the postscript which actually points to your explanations and excuses not stacking up which of course they don't.

So that adds hypocrisy to all your other miserable failings!

Devildog

Lol

Let's all calm down for a minute. Ok. Here's the facts (speaking as a qualified insolvency practitioner)


That bbc article is misleading (surprise surprise)
In any redundancy situation employers are required to consult. The relevant timescales for consultation depend on the number of employees.

In any insolvency, including administration, consultation is not possible because there simply isn't the cash to wait for up to 90 days to make redundancies.

So administrators have no choice but to effectively disregard consultation. That's not the administrators fault or choice, it's because the law is badly written.

The awards that have been made to those employees because the administrators were unable to consult will rank as ordinary unsecured claims against the insolvent company. Let's get one thing very straight, the Redundancy Payments Service will only make payments that would have been due and payable to those employees anyway, hence the wording of their statement. Deloittes actions will categorically not have increased the burden on the taxpayer that was not already there.

But let's not (in true scoobynet fashion) let the facts get in the way of a good sensationalist media story.

F1 fan, I thought better of you than to propagate sensationalist media crap

Devildog

No mate, it's not their liability. It's the insolvent companies liability.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

So the article is wrong when it states that the payout is due to the fact that the administrators did not follow procedure?

Devildog

The administrators can't follow procedure. It's not a choice to disregard it.

In the case of Woolworths the consultation period would have been 90 days. That's three months wages for which the cash would not have existed. Ok, so there is a choice, they can consult for three months but not pay anyone.

That's breach of contract -and anyway, who's going to work unpaid for three months?

So, fail to consult properly or breach of contract.?

Either way the claim exists. The fault is in the legislation, not what administrators do.

Devildog

And I should add, that the consultation procedure and the law that surrounds it, was not written for insolvent employers. The law is in fact silent in such cases, so the courts follow the only law that exists.

Now, I wouldn't expect you to know that as a lay person, but had the bbc bothered to do any basic research that point would have been clear.

Let me ask you this. How exactly is an administrator supposed to pay employees for up to three months with no cash to do so when appointed to an insolvent company with massive debt?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

While I understand what you are saying you have sidestepped my question which was to ask you whether or not the payout was awarded due to the administraors not following procedure. Whether they could follow procedure or not is another issue, but is that the reason for the payout?

Your first post seems to imply the workers would have been due this payout anyway from public funds in which case why did they have to wait for what you seem to imply is a farcical legal process?

Not having a go at you, I just want to understand the situation as something here does not add up!

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Well I agree that they can't, but as I said above if these people were due this money from public funds anyway why has this had to go through a legal procedure?

That is the bit that does not add up to me. Or is this union meddling once again?

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

I wonder if I could have sued usdaw after they took 3 weeks to send a rep out after it was announced we were being made redundant

Devildog

Not sidestepping. The administrators did not follow proper procedure for a solvent company, but this is an insolvent company. The law needs to be changed.

The reason for the legal procedure is that employees need to go to a tribunal to be awarded anything more than the statutory entitlement (which is paid in insolvencies from the redundancy fund (ie the taxpayer)). That statutory entitlement covers wages unpaid, holiday pay unpaid, statutory redundancy and a compensatory payment fot failing to recieve notice It does not include protective awards for unfair dismissal (which is what effectively exists upon failure to consult)

Such awards (as have been made in this case) fall as a liability of the insolvent company (woolworths) but because woolworths can't pay, then the RPS will pay what the law dictates it should.

That exists because woolworths is insolvent, not because the administrators have acted negligently.

So anyone wanting to have a pop, should have a pop at either woolworths directors, or the law itself. The parties who are not responsible here are the administrators or, for once, the unions.

Be sure of one thing, the union has not won a victory against the administrators here. All the union has done is exploited a hole in the law which is, to be blunt, an ***.

JackClark

I don't pretend to know anything about this subject, but if there was no money to pay the employees how did the the administrators get paid?

Devildog

From assets realised following either a sale of the business or the break up and sale of the assets. Otherwise by the appointing bank or banks.

There's a ranking of who gets paid which is laid down in statute

1) creditors with fixed charge security (from those assets secured)
2) the expenses of the administration including administrators fees
3) preferential creditors (employees for unpaid wages and holiday pay due at the start of the insolvency)
4) creditors with floating charges
5) unsecured creditors

Protective awards fall under 5

The issue Jack is that it can take weeks, months or years to realise those assets. Administrators in a trading scenario effectively start with zero cash.

This is a very generalistic and basic summary - the reality is often massively complicated. Which is why we get paid what we do.

JackClark

Thanks.

Lee247

It's the unsecured creditors I feel sorry for. One Company I know went down and took a number of small businesses with them. Yet, the Company brought in to close the affairs, got thousands