Toorallie Pays Up

Date: 04 February 2002

Canberra based knitting mill Toorallie has recently paid out $29,000 in fines and backpay arising from ten convictions for breaches of the Textile Industry Award imposed by the Chief Industrial Magistrates' Court in May last year.

Despite losing an appeal in August last year Toorallie did not pay the monies until the Union was on the threshold of winding up the Company.

The ten convictions in May 2001 were the result of the Union serving the Company with ten summonses for underpayment of wages for two of its members. The Union will be taking claims for seven more former Toorallie employees in March when the Chief Industrial Magistrate will hear a further 121 summonses served on the Company late last year.

The 121 summonses are for a range of industrial breaches including failure to pay holiday pay, long service leave, Award wages, sick leave and public holidays. In addition there are numerous breaches for failure to pay superannuation on time.

The Union's Secretary Mr Barry Tubner, said that "...the costs to the Company for its failure to comply with basic Award employee entitlements has been substantial and we expect that cost will escalate many times over as a result of the prosecutions in March. Notwithstanding any fines that may be imposed the underpayment claims alone amount to many tens of thousands of dollars. All reasonable attempts have been made to settle these claims. The Union attempted conciliation in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission for about six months without success before it took prosecution action. After the Company was convicted in May last year we gave it a further opportunity to resolve the outstanding claims on a without prejudice basis but the offer was never taken up".

For further information

Contact:	David Tritton
Union:	Labor Council of NSW
Phone:	(02)9789 5233
Contact Mobile:	0408166646

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