Feltex joins the Hilton IGA supermarket in Western Australia and United Petroleum petrol stations in Tasmania as cases that all involved the sale of a business as an ongoing concern but where the new owner has refused to honour the existing pay and conditions of the transferring employees.
"The Howard Government spent $55 million of taxpayers' money in advertisements to say that the pay and conditions of workers would be 'protected by law' after a transmission of business ownership. What we are seeing now is this that this promise was meaningless," said Mr Combet.
In a case currently before the Federal Court and the Industrial Commission, the Godfrey Hirst company has wrongly stated that its new job offer to the Feltex workers is comparable to the workers' current pay and conditions.
TCFUA -Textile Union- State Secretary Michele O'Neil said: "This claim by the company is untrue. Godfrey Hirst is in fact proposing a major cut to the workers' redundancy pay entitlements and a major change to conditions that could see the company unilaterally changing workers' jobs and reducing their rights."
"A number of other changes, including the right to stand down employees at any time could see a dramatic loss of benefits for the 320 former Feltex production workers at its Australian operations in Melbourne's western suburbs and Hallam," said Ms O'Neil.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is the only peak council and national centre representing the Australian workforce. The ACTU is made up of 46 affiliated unions representing around 1.8 million workers.
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSllC Ltd)")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF)")
