Darrell Lea workers win sweet victory over redundancy payments
Six former Darrell Lea workers have had a sweet victory, with the company agreeing to pay them around half a million dollars they are owed in redundancy entitlements.
The six workers have been fighting for their redundancy entitlements since May last year, when Darrell Lea shut its Kogarah site in Sydney's south.
The Fair Work Commission ordered the company to pay the redundancies but, as the ABC reported on Saturday, instead of paying the money the six workers were left in a shelf company with no assets that was then put into voluntary liquidation.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union vowed to fight for every cent owed and late last night, after a six hour marathon meeting with Darrell Lea's owners, it struck a deal.
"Darrell Lea has now committed to the AMWU that they will pay 100 per cent of the outstanding entitlements to this group of workers today," said the AMWU's NSW secretary Tim Ayres.
He said the workers have been told and are over the moon.
"They are just so pleased and it means so much to them," he said.
"It will make a real difference to their lives, the security of knowing these payments are coming through."
It is expected the workers will receive the money as early as today.
