New ACTU boss wades into Geelong Arc dispute

Andrew Mathieson
A BOSS who started a third failed business left owing workers tens of thousands of dollars in entitlements, according to Australia’s peak union organisation.
The ACTU joined former Arc Engineering employees this week to take up the fight for their missing accrued annual leave, redundancy payments, final weekly wages and up to 20 months of superannuation each.
New ACTU president Ged Kearney said unions were dismayed the workers had been held in such contempt.
“This is just pretty terrible,” she said.
“They all got laid off around Christmas last year, which makes it even more tragic.
“This is sort of situation we have to avoid and the unions have been fighting for a long time.
“Workers should be top of the list for getting paid out when companies go under.”
Ms Kearney said the ACTU attempted to make contact with former Arc boss Phil Townrow at his latest venture, Inteng, on the same site as the defunct business only to discover the doors closed again on Tuesday.
Unions claimed Inteng was the third re-branding of the engineering firm following previous names Alloy and Arc.
“To open up another business straight away is a real slap of the face if he had enough money to start up another business in a different name,” M Kearney said.
She believed the workers were entitled to their minimum entitlements under existing federal laws.
Mrs Kearney said the Arc workers had been unaware the company was insolvent company until their last day.
“They just said they had no cash, didn’t have any money to pay them out. They should have been paying the superannuation all long. They should have made provisions to pay out redundancy entitlements.”
The Independent attempted to contact Mr Townrow at the premises of Inteng but a woman who answered the call said: “There is no one of that name here.”