Redundancy pay blow for Ramage staff

Apr 24 2008 By George Topp

AXED employees of the collapsed Clydesdale-based logistics company Ramage Distribution are facing “financial ruin”, it was claimed this week.

The allegation  came from one of the 350 redundant workers — after discovering there was very little chance of recovering lost pay from his employer.

The body blow to local workers came after it was revealed that the long-established Glespin company, which has gone into administration, had virtually no assets.

It is believed administrators have discovered that the company, despite a £30 million turnover, only had assets of about £30,000.

It’s understood they also discovered the company did not even own their site, having sold it for a reputed £2.5 million sum to a Lancashire-based company last year.

The firm are also believed to have sold-off their 170 trucks and were renting back their fleet, along with their former Glespin headquarters.

Apart from the body blow of losing their jobs, in an area where there is little chance of  another similar position, shocked  workers  won’t be getting as much redundancy money as they had thought.

“I didn’t get my wages before the firm closed and they also owe me money for holidays and notice”, one driver told the Advertiser this week. “I, like many others, expected all that money to be paid by redundancy. Now we’re being told it’s not, and we’re getting less.

“I’ve got a family, big mortgage and credit card debts.

“I’ve no idea what I’m going to do.

“At the moment we’re living from hand to mouth off my wife’s money, but she doesn’t earn much and we’re worried sick about losing the house.

We don’t even know when we’re going to get the reduced redundancy payments. We’re being told that could be weeks,” he added.

The workforce have been caught out by redundancy laws which cap the  amount paid to staff losing jobs.

An insolvency specialist explained that in a situation where a company could not meet redundancy pay, those being made redundant would claim from the National Insurance Fund through the Redundancy Payments Office.

It would pay redundancy, notice, outstanding salary and holiday pay, etc. But these payments were capped at £330 a week. Anyone earning more than that would have to apply to the administrators of the company.

If there were sufficient assets then the outstanding pay would be met, although that could take up to a year.

If the company didn’t have sufficient assets, as appeared might be the case here, then employees would not get the rest of pay due.

Angry former workers are claiming pension payments have not been made up to date. There is also uncertainty over a staff holiday bonus scheme.

It was becoming clearer this week there is little chance of saving anything other than a very small number of jobs, and then probably only if the administrators manage to find someone willing to take over a warehousing and distribution set-up at Glespin.

This week, senior politicians insisted there had to be a full  inquiry into what is understood to be one of the largest job losses in the district, with 150 jobs affected.

All 85 drivers are redundant, 28 of  40 warehouse staff have lost jobs and 23 of 37 office workers have been made redundant, along with six of the seven fleet management staff.

Clydesdale MP David Mundell and MSP Karen Gillon met with the administrators on Thursday. After the meeting with Gary Fraser of KPMG, Mr Mundell said: “He has explained he is focussing on going forward and what possibilities there are for any part of the business continuing to operate, rather than at this stage looking at why what happened, happened.”

Mr Mundell said both politicians are keen to see continuing warehousing and, if possible, distribution from Glespin and are hoping to meet its landlord.

Meanwhile, they are also meeting with JobCentre Plus to find out the current situation for people who have been made redundant and ascertain who is still out of work so that help can be appropriately focused.