Posted on 13 Apr 2018
Judge orders TCFUA employees be paid appropriately
By Slater and Gordon
Principal Industrial and Employment Lawyer Andrew Rich has helped three members of the TCFUA who, without appropriate warning, lost their jobs after their employer Icon Print Innovations was sold.
On Friday 22 March, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia ordered that the organisation pay three Textile Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) members a total of $92,181.15 as well as $20,000 to the union itself.
Judge Street ordered the payment under the Fair Work Act 2009 after Icon Print Innovations failed to pay the three employees the appropriate long service leave, annual leave, notice of termination and redundancy payments, when they lost their jobs after the company was wound up.
Icon Print Innovations was sold in 2013 with the three workers losing their jobs in 2015. The company and its predecessors had provided printing for a number of large companies, including Mambo, RM Williams and Volcom.
Andrew said the court’s decision to order the payments proved that Icon Print Innovations had failed to appropriately dismiss the three former employees.
He said the company had not provided their employees notice of their dismissal in writing and were merely told that the business was “winding up”. They were not given a date as to when their roles would finish until an email was sent a week prior to its closure.
Andrew said none of the workers were highly paid employees and that all three had worked for Icon Print Innovations for extended periods of time.
“These employees were not paid in lieu of notice, neither were they paid redundancy pay. They also failed to pay their accrued but untaken long service leave and annual leave entitlements,” he said.
“The Judge’s decision confirms that this company has failed to provide for three workers who had unfortunately lost their positions and that directors will be held personally accountable for such failures.
“We hope that this stands as an important example as to how Australian workers should be treated in this unfortunate situation.”
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