EMPLOYEES at a historic railway works threatened with closure have been told they are to be paid for the first time in six weeks, but will still be owed a month's salary.
Workers at the Railcare factory in Springburn, Glasgow - which went into administration last week - will tomorrow be paid for ten days of work.
It will be their first pay packet since June 28. However, administrators BDO said there were insufficient funds to reimburse staff for their outstanding July salary.
Bryan Jackson, joint administrator and business restructuring partner at BDO, said the administrators had been in touch with the firm's customers to "determine their anticipated future spending with the company".
He added: "Monies have started to be received for work going forward, and as a result the joint administrators are in a position to pay staff advance wages for the period between August 1 and August 10.
"These wages will be paid on Friday, and we are hopeful of being able to confirm further wage advances next week. Staff wages are the primary concern of the joint administrators."
Referring to the inability to pay staff for the month leading up to administration, he said: "We understand this will have caused hardship. This is why the joint administrators are committed to paying staff promptly for the work they are currently doing to the extent that circumstances allow."
The administrators are understood to be in talks with four potential buyers, including German firm Knorr-Bremse and Doncaster-based Wabtec.
It comes after union Unite held talks with John Swinney on Tuesday in a bid to find short-term cash solutions for the business.
Eddie Duffy, Unite representative at Railcare Springburn, asked Mr Swinney to lean on Railcare's major creditor, RBS, and persuade the bank not to take any money coming in from customers until the plant's workers are paid.
Mr Duffy said he had also been assured money owed by ScotRail, whose stock is serviced and repaired at the Glasgow factory, would be paid immediately.
More than 30 Railcare Springburn employees were made redundant last Friday, leaving a staff of around 70 at the plant. Another 120 were also laid off at Railcare's Milton Keynes depot.
The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which also represents workers, blamed the crisis on delays caused by the bungled West Coast Main Line franchising bid, which held up fleet refurbishment plans.
Although the business is said to have a full order book, with plenty of work in the pipeline, it said workers were now facing the prospect of redundancy due to a cash-flow crisis believed to amount to little more than £1 million.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said: "While this is a step in the right direction, and at least puts some money in our members' pockets, it does not address the wage arrears or do anything to help over 150 staff who have already been thrown out of work.
"The fact that some cash flow is now rolling shows that Railcare is a perfectly viable business with a full order book.
"RMT is once again calling on Business Secretary Vince Cable and the Government to seize the opportunity to help protect all the jobs at Railcare, our members' pension rights and the programme of refurbishment work that is essential to keeping Britain's trains moving."
The Glasgow factory employed some 4000 workers in its heyday under British Rail ownership, when locomotives were shipped from the Springburn production line to all corners of the Empire. However, the site has been in steady decline since the 1980s.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article