Trade union Unite has called for an immediate criminal investigation into the collapse of Carillion.
Speaking yesterday at the TUC Congress in Manchester, Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “Eight months after Carillion’s collapse the Insolvency Service is only just beginning to investigate if laws were broken. This is simply too little too late.
“There must be an immediate criminal investigation into Carillion. And we the trade union movement must lead that call. If no laws were broken, then we need better, stronger laws.”
Unite pointed to the reported £7bn of liabilities Carillion had at its collapse, including a £2.6 billion deficit in its pension funds. Around 3,000 if Carillion’s 19,000 workers have been made redundant and Unite claimed that “hundreds if not thousands” more had lost their jobs once the effect of Carillion’s collapse on subcontractors and suppliers was taken into account.
Cartmail added: “The government and other organisations are treating Carillion’s collapse as business as normal.
“There is nothing normal about the biggest corporate collapse in the UK’s history.
“While thousands of workers have been thrown on the scrapheap, those responsible for driving the company into the ditch, have dusted themselves off and started again as if nothing had happened.
“If nothing criminal occurred then we should be told how on earth it can be legal to have embarked on the policies pursued by Carillion’s management team which drove it to the wall with little prior warning.”
