ID severance appeals
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by Karen Miles • Two thousand workers employed by Leyland Daf before its receivership last year are to fight the Government, Renault in France and receivers Arthur Andersen for improved severance terms.
In a series of controversial legal challenges to this powerful trio, solicitors working for former staff at the Leyland truck manufacturing site, the Birmingham van plant and Glasgow-based Albion Axles are putting together their cases for more money.
Staff affiliated to the Amalgamated Engineering & Electrical Union are working through solicitors to pursue the Department of Employment.
The workers are expected to apply to the High Court soon to sue for an alleged breach of European law, although the Government has changed the law since Leyland Daf's receivership.
At the time of the receiver ship it was difficult under UK law for workers to keep their full protective award which was won at an industrial tribunal after it ruled that receivers had not properly consulted unions before making redundancies.
But the unions will also be arguing against the DoE at a tribunal that even under the law as it existed at the time, the Government was wrong to reduce sums from the protective award.
In a second attack, staff made redundant from the joint Leyland Daf and Renault vehicle development project, Excel, will be chasing the French manufacturer for compensation for alleged unfair dismissal.
The outcome of that case will ultimately depend on whether it can be proven there had been a
transfer of undertaking to Renault after Leyland Daf's receivership.
Receivers Murdoch McKillop and John Talbot, employed by Arthur Andersen, are being personally pursued by workers from the former Albion Axles plant at Glasgow.
• A central ownership register, where commercial vehicles
would be logged by chassis number, is to be proposed in a private member's bill.
If the bill becomes law, every prospective truck and van buyer will have to pay an administra tion charge of around £3 to check the vehicle has never
been stolen, has never been an insurance write-off, and is not subject to a hire or lease agreement. Manufacturers would be forced to register all new vehicles' chassis numbers. The cur rent register of vehicles bought under Finance terms operated by HPI Autodata is voluntary, and vehicles are identified by their registration numbers. The bill is likely to be carried through parliament by Shoreham MP Michael Stephen, but it is the idea of the Finance & Leasing Association, whose members are worried by increases in fraud.