Former Simclar workers awarded £1.15m payout

SOME 100 former workers of electronics manufacturing firm Simclar have been awarded compensation totalling £1.15 million.

Industrial trade union Community said the award will cover 104 workers made redundant at the Dunfermline-based company in 2011.

The union secured the compensation award following an employment tribunal in Glasgow, where it claimed employees had been dismissed unfairly. It said the company failed to honour the 90-day consultation period before redundancy, arguing that the firm was in breach of contract regarding notice and holiday pay.

The union also won a claim for unfair dismissal for trade union activities on behalf of one of its members at the plant.

John Paul McHugh, Scottish campaign manager for Community, said: “It has been a very stressful time for our members and their families. But the union stood by them and will continue to do so as we now seek to recover the full money they are due.”

The union said the tribunal outcome paves the way for workers to recover the money from the company’s assets.

The company, which supplied cables and components to electronics companies, appointed administrators from Deloitte last June. Earlier this month it was revealed that the remnants of its former UK manufacturing operations had been sold for just £134,000, leaving creditors facing hefty losses.

Simclar grew from humble beginnings to become the parent company of a subcontract manufacturing group with operations in the UK, China, Mexico and the US.

Despite closing two plants in Ayrshire with the loss of 420 jobs in 2007, the UK operation still employed 217 people when it failed. It supplied a number of blue-chip customers, including Bombardier and Alexander Dennis.