Workers fight for payout over redundancies
DOZENS LOST JOBS WHEN ENGINEERING FIRM WENT BUST
WORKERS made redundant at a Derby engineering firm are gearing up to fight for compensation over how they were treated.
Dozens of workers were left jobless after Garrandale Manufacturing in Alfreton Road suddenly went into administration earlier this month.
The collapse of the company, which had operated in Derby since the 1970s, shocked many in the city, with one former staff member describing it as “brutal”.
Now the Derby Telegraph understands a number of former employees are preparing to claim for damages in conjunction with Linder Myers Solicitors.
They claim the company did not consult them properly on the mass redundancies – something required by law.
The group action is to claim a Protective Award, which is compensation given by an employment tribunal to people who have not been consulted by their employer before being made redundant.
If successful, workers in the suit could receive up to eight weeks’ pay, capped at a maximum of £544 per week, something that would have to be paid for by the Government as the firm is no longer operating.
The Derby Telegraph has been told that about 70 people, including a number who had been on furlough, were told on Wednesday, August 4, that the company was insolvent and, as a result, they no longer had jobs. It is understood that Birmingham-based insolvency firm Butcher Woods was called in by the company the day before.
When we sent a reporter to Garrandale on the Thursday, there was nobody at the factory at the Northedge Business Park, the blinds in the building were closed, there was no activity on the site and the car park was empty.
The company was set up in 1976 by Chris Moore, Paul Woollands and John Foxcroft.
The trio found success in designing equipment to streamline manufacturing in the automotive, healthcare, oil and gas sectors.
In the 1980s, the business started working on production equipment for railway carriages, giving it a foothold in the rail industry.
At the turn of the millennium, it won work with AEA Technology for a system that prevented wheels from slipping and, following the harsh winter of 2012, carried out work protecting trains and carriages from the weather.
Bombardier, now known as Alstom, became one of its most important customers.
At the beginning of the last decade, the company had a forward order book of £15 million, was making consistent profits and its turnover had passed £10 million for the first time.
Garrandale won the Derbyshire Business of the Year title at the Derbyshire’s Best Business Awards 2013.
In the past few years, it had relocated from its premises facing Alfreton Road, having invested heavily in the new factory premises at the back of the Northedge Business Park that is now empty.