As if losing 29 of their workmates weren’t enough, the remaining workers at Pike River Mine now face a bleak Christmas with the Company going into liquidation.
Pike River Coal chairman John Dow announced today that New Zealand Oil & Gas had appointed a receiver to the company at the request of the board of Pike River Coal, with John Fisk, David Bridgman and Malcolm Hollis, partners from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, being appointed as the mine’s receivers.
This was on the cards from day one of the disaster and I understand contractors were laid off almost immediately – with nothing.
But there’s now doubt as to whether the miners directly employed by Pike River Coal will get their one month of notice paid out, redundancy payments and any other entitlements such as holiday pay.
I know the Company’s not a charity, but for goodness sake – surely they could have waited until after Christmas?
@paul: It’s true, there is no class in NZ.
There’s people with money, people with no money and people with lots and lots of money, but class, I think not
CV, the company employed the people they needed to and got the contractors for a relatively small percentage they didn’t need to employ. The company said they would have a work force of 150. They just laid off 114. For example, maybe they had a contracted electrician. If they only needed say one electrician in the mine it would be obvious for them to contract one person from a firm of electricians instead of employing their own electrician, after all, electricians are often contracted.
Some the contractors were in transport trucking the coal for example. A completely separate company called Solid Energy was contracted to transport the coal to Lyttelton so that Pike River didn’t have to spend more money buying railway wagons. The entrance tunnel was contracted to a firm specialising in tunnel construction expertise. Etc.
They said on the news tonight that the workers would be getting $18,000 redundancy pay..?
Was that right..?
Wow, that would seem high. Great employment agreements, collective or otherwise if true. I heard on the news this morning that half the workers werent entitled to redundancy because they werent employed for the minimum one year.
@Jeremy and Tracey – it’s to a maximum of $18,000 and as I understand it, includes holilday pay, but not notice of redundancy. It will depend on years of service and some workers will get nothing, and some will only get about three weeks pay.
Darien, is it only mine workers being laid off, or has office/management been hit too?
Good question Tracey – I assume its only miners at the moment, but I will try to find out.