CITY LINK ‘COLLAPSE’ SHAMES THE NATION

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2015 :: RMTnews 6 RMT held protests outside City Link depots across the country as news emerged that the taxpayer was footing the bill for over 2,700 workers sacked over Christmas. Hundreds more ‘owner- drivers, subcontracted to operate City Link vans, will receive no compensation at all. Anger has risen after corporate records revealed that three City Link directors, including CEO David Smith and Better Capital (BC) executive Thomas Wright, lodged papers at Companies House earlier last month for a firm named ‘City Link B2b’. The union has insisted that the creation of a new company suggested that the trio could be set to buy back what’s left from administrators at a knock-down price. Questions also mounted over the conduct of Guernsey-based venture capital firm BC, which took over the company for £1 last year with a promised £40 million cash injection. BC founder Jon Moulton, who has donated nearly half a million pounds to the Tory Party and now bankroll’s UKIP, also used the crisis to snap up another £3.8 million of BC shares. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that the whole affair was a microcosm of everything that was wrong with business in Britain — it shows how little protection workers have got and the power of bandit capitalism to protect itself. “This is an act of industrial vandalism that shames the nation while the government has offered nothing but hollow words. “Pulling the plug on any efforts to save City Link is a cynical betrayal that will wreck the lives of our members, many of whom are owed thousands of pounds. “RMT does not believe that those pulling the strings had any interest in saving this business and were happy to cut and run leaving a trail of human misery in their wake. “The City Link collapse has blown the lid off the cosy relationship between bandit capitalism and the political elite. “RMT will continue to represent members caught in this corporate failure while those responsible will slink away with their own resources ring fenced and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the redundancy tab,” he said. Business secretary Vince Cable rejected RMT’s call for direct government intervention, similar to the rescue of the banks, as a way of saving the thousands of jobs caught in the middle of this crisis. Cable also refused to back a summit involving the union, administrators and the government and an eleventh hour package that could have saved thousands of jobs. Labour MP Michael Meacher said that the scandal was “a modern form of private equity asset-stripping”. He said that Jon Moulton had transferred basic redundancy rights to be funded by the taxpayers and used a secured loan as investment to ensure that he would rank ahead of staff when the proceeds from the liquidation came to be distributed. “As a result he now expects to screw off £20 million from the liquidation while leaving nearly 3,000 workers high and dry,” he said. CITY LINK ‘COLLAPSE’ SHAMES THE NATION Union exposes links between the political elite and bandit capitalism as courier firm asset stripped