In January 2004, when it became clear that the company would not survive, my colleagues and I lived in hope that we we would receive a substantial proportion of our entitlements. None of us imagined we would have to wait more than eight years to get something from the Liquidator. It finally arrived this week, the "first and final priority dividend to former employees."
Thu, 23. February 2012
Liquidation of Austin Australia
I almost felt like I had just been been raped when I saw the cheque details. After watching recovered millions flow into the Company's liquidation account, I certainly didn't expect to receive a derisory cheque of $183.42 as a final payout for twenty-six years employment. This post-tax payment was considerably less than what the Liquidator charged the Austin estate for half an hour's work and I expected a better outcome than that.
I watched all the greedy lawyers, accountants and other hangers-on in a feeding frenzy over Austin's dead body for eight years and fifty-two days, so I suppose I should not be too surprised that only a few scraps were left over, to compensate all the good people who were employed by the Company and lost their livelihoods. The money was there to pay us but other parties syphoned it off as fast as they could, before it could reach us.
The return of Unfair Preferential Payments, sought by the Liquidator and expected to restore millions to the Austin account, was an utter disaster. Much cash was retrieved from contractors who had been paid preferentially whilst Austin was trading in insolvency - but we were told the costs involved in the retrieval were more than the amount retrieved, so it ended in a net loss to Austin's account.
The Judges in the NSW Supreme Court and the Arbitrator in the case brought by Auburn council all shamefully allowed legal proceedings to drag on for years, never considering the retrenched employees. In fact, the entire eight-year legal process was a farcical exercise which totally ignored the rights of the employees. We were represented by no-one and our basic rights were not even secondary. All we could do was to watch events unfolding with utter disbelief, whilst the available money was gobbled up.
The role of Auburn Council in this affair disgusts me. They employed the most senior member of the NSW bar and probably one of the most expensive lawyers in the land, Tom Hughes A.O., Q.C (former Attorney-General of Australia), to fight a weak case for over six years before losing it. If they had paid up in 2003 instead of taking on a futile case, Austin Australia may arguably still be in business and the ratepayers of Auburn would be better off too. Instead, they pressed on, hoping that financial pressures on the Liquidation process would end up with Austin caving in due to lack of resources. To his credit, the Liquidator did not give in. However, not only were the employees originally sent to the scrap heap by Auburn Council's refusal to pay for the work done by Austin in the first place; but they were then denied their leave and redundancy payouts as well, because of the long drawn out court battle the Council stubbornly fought.
Austin's legal representation in the Auburn affair was propped up by litigation funders, Hillcrest. Following the successful outcome of the case, Hillcrest decided to get in on the act and demanded more money than the Liquidator believed they were entitled to; and so began another protracted legal proceeding which sucked even more money from the Austin account.
I'm not going to comment on the role of the Liquidator in all this. He was appointed to wind-up the Company within the parameters of the law and it seems he has now done that. He was not appointed to represent the interests of the employees. No one was, which is why we got trampled on. The odds were stacked against us and everybody involved got something out of it except the employees and the subbies. As always, the lawyers all went home happy (over)paid in full.
It's time to let go of this unfair mess completely, to move on and put the bloody awful saga behind me but the moral of the story is not to accumulate leave entitlements but to take them when they become available - and it's too late now for that.
My Austin Australia Timeline:
1961: Company founded by The Austin Company (US)1977: I joined.1997: Austin Australia sold by The Austin Company to Australian owners.31st December 2003: Voluntary Administrator appointed.4th February 2004: 90% of staff retrenched.
10th March 2004: Liquidator appointed.16th April 2004: My employment was terminated.21st February 2012: Employees receive final payout. 3.7c per dollar for leave entitlements and 0.0c per dollar for redundancy entitlements.
Wikipedia Austin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Australia
Liquidation documents: http://home.exetel.com.au/greybeard/Austin/indexAA.htm
acknowledgements to the cartoonist.
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
The author does not allow comments to this entry
