{"id":16108,"date":"2018-09-10T13:01:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T12:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=16108"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:15","slug":"unite-ags-gail-cartmail-criminal-carillion-tuc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=16108","title":{"rendered":"‘Not a one off’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spectacular fall from grace earlier this year, which wiped out thousands of jobs and has stalled public sector projects including hospitals, is one of the greatest corporate failures in UK history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nearly three thousand direct jobs were lost, while many more jobs in the wider supply chain have gone to the wall, too. Many smaller construction companies enmeshed in Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s subcontracting apparatus went bust as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Important public sector projects such as the Midland Metropolitan and Royal Liverpool Hospitals have been mothballed. The unfinished buildings are now deteriorating, which is pushing the costs even further. Neither hospital has a new start date eight months after Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collapse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Against this backdrop of loss and failure, Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top bosses aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t being held to account \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many have already found lucrative new work. A former Carillion director, Mark Davies, for example, has been appointed by Balfour Beatty to run their HS2 joint venture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s demise isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as those who managed the construction giant might have you believe \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a result of a mere series of unfortunate events. Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bosses were reckless and the government aided and abetted their inherently flawed business model.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite reiterated its call at the TUC conference today (September 10) for both a public inquiry and criminal investigation into Carillion \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not only so that those who precipitated the firm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s destruction pay for their misdeeds but so that another Carillion never happens again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

End outsourcing culture call<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail made the call as she seconded a composite on government outsourcing arguing that the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bculture of outsourcing must end.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She said that outsourcing creates a \u00e2\u20ac\u015brace to the bottom on pay, conditions, and levels of service\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and it also \u00e2\u20ac\u015bundermines collective bargaining, and we see key workers on the lowest pay \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the working poor.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honing in on Carillion, Cartmail said the construction giant mutated from a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bconstruction company to an entity with tentacles throughout the public sector.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She accused the firm of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bacting like a Ponzi scheme, with a constant need for new contracts to offset losses.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top bosses knew full well the extent of the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teetering on the brink of failure, the firm continued paying out dividends to shareholders and hid the impending disaster using \u00e2\u20ac\u015baggressive accounting practices,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Cartmail said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI am advised not to call this \u00e2\u20ac\u0098cooking the books\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 so I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, but Congress, projects which were losing millions were shown making a profit on paper. How is this possible?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCarillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s auditors and other directors failed to raise a peep,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she noted. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bRichard Adam knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHe retired, aged 59, before Carillion hit the skids and cashed in three quarters of a million worth of shares. Nice work if you can get it.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cartmail went on to highlight the role the government played in the Carillion disaster and said it too must be held accountable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen the company was already in meltdown last year they awarded it \u00c2\u01412bn worth of new contracts,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015b[This was] a vote of confidence which falsely indicated to Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suppliers it remained a going concern.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAt the very beginning of Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collapse Unite said their business model is broken and Carillion is not a one off,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Cartmail warned. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThat is why we demanded then, as we demand now, an inquiry.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere must be an immediate criminal investigation into Carillion,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd we the trade union movement must lead that call. If no laws were broken, then we need better, stronger laws. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe owe it to the workers and apprentices who were dumped without warning. And we owe it to the workers who could face a similar fate.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The composite was overwhelmingly carried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spectacular fall from grace earlier this year, which wiped out thousands of jobs and has stalled public sector projects including hospitals, is one of the greatest corporate failures in UK history.   Nearly three thousand direct jobs were lost, while many more jobs in the wider supply chain have gone to the wall, too. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[855,167,1008],"wps_subtitle":"Unite AGS Gail Cartmail calls for criminal investigation into Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collapse","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25910,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16108\/revisions\/25910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}