THREE of the staff sacked by social welfare agency Community Connections are taking legal action to recover money owed to them in redundancy payments.
They were employed in the agency’s residential care program which was axed last month after a four-month government investigation found a series of breaches.
Their lawyer, Creon Coolahan of Stringer Clark, said the three staff were being shortchanged thousands of dollars.
The firm and the Australian Services Union (ASU) have both filed proceedings with Fair Work Australia against Community Connections Victoria (CCV) for breaching its legal obligations to fully pay out the sacked staff.
Mr Coolahan said he had sought assurances from CCV that his clients would be paid their rightful redundancies but the agency had been stalling until Thursday.
“We are (now) informed that Community Connections wants Fair Work Australia to excuse it from paying any or all of the redundancy payments that its residential care workers are owed.
“We have no alternative but to pursue legal action,” he said.
The ASU said it was also deeply concerned about members who had not only lost their jobs but now looked like they were going to miss out on their entitlements.
“The ASU will actively pursue CCV to ensure that ASU members do not again suffer as a result of poor management at CCV,” union organiser Leon Weigard said yesterday.
“We are also concerned for remaining staff. If CCV can’t meet their obligations to former staff, what does that mean for these workers?’’
CCV revealed this week that it does not have the $600,000-plus needed to pay 50 former staff their redundancy entitlements and has called on the government to meet the cost.
The employees worked in the agency’s residential care, foster care, financial counselling and gambler’s help programs which closed after being stripped of government funding.
“The reality is that this not-for-profit agency does not have $614,000 sitting in reserves, nor could it be expected to have budgeted for this number of redundancies all at once,” a CCV spokeswoman told The Standard.
Community Southwest chairwoman Claire Vissenga has also publicly called for the Community Connections board to “do the right thing” by its staff.
Community Southwest is a coalition of 15 not-for-profit organisations, including CCV, which operate throughout the district.
“Whilst not familiar with the legal implications of the demise of Community Connections, we would anticipate that any member organisation of Community Southwest would honour all financial obligations to their staff, particularly over Christmas,” Ms Vissenga said.
The CCV spokeswoman said the agency was yet to fully assess the total costs it had incurred as a result of the funding cuts, but obvious areas included car fleet expenses, lease and office rental agreements, office equipment, telecommunications and information technology.
Meanwhile, Warrnambool-based Brophy Family and Youth Services, which was asked by the government to take over interim management of the foster care program, has revealed that it has recruited three staff from the former CCV program.
It has also seconded three from other Brophy programs and recruited four new staff.
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