The boss of beleaguered hospitality firm Macmerry has been slammed as a "coward" by his staff after sacking more than 20 of them by email in what union bosses say was a pre-planned mass-firing.
Dundee-based hospitality boss Phil Donaldson laid off workers at the Abandon Ship Glasgow and London bars on Monday, less than two weeks after telling them their jobs were safe. Staff had been told not to come to work at the start of the week because of planned "refurbishments".
By the afternoon, much of the venue had been stripped out - prompting suggestions from unions that the cull had been pre-meditated.
Ross Campbell, Unite lead for the Glasgow bar, has hit out at Donaldson for the way he has treated staff, and for refusing to engage with those who have raised issues with management.
He said: "I had a grievance that's been going for weeks now and Phil refuses to talk to people if he isn't going to get the result he wants. He's a coward."
Abandon Ship staff expected to lose their jobs after Donaldson transferred company assets from his original trading company, Macmerry300 Ltd, to new firm Belford Ltd. Macmerry was the subject of a winding-up petition from HMRC over what are understood to be six-figure tax debts - but Donaldson liquidated the company before the taxman could act.
In an email to trade union representatives on June 22 Donaldson said Abandon Ship workers "will be unaffected by any changes elsewhere". But less than two weeks later he fired off emails to staff to say they were out of a job.
Ross says the closure was expected after the Macmerry boss refused to engage with unionised workers who fought back against what they called "systematic mistreatment" at Abandon Ship and other Macmerry venues. Donaldson says an independent HR investigation has absolved Macmerry of wrongdoing, but has refused to release its conclusions.
Bar worker Ross added: "Phil Donaldson does not know how to how to run a company and doesn't have a shred of empathy for other human beings. He had the opportunity 12 days ago to tell us if things were dire and we all saw it coming.
"The management have tried to say it's the bad press but what steps have they actually taken to make things better for us since the Unite grievance?
"We got a bit more transparency about our pay but payslips are still turning up late and people are still waiting on holiday and sick pay. The same issues keep repeating themselves and they've learned absolutely nothing."
Jamie Mackay, who was assistant general manager at the Glasgow pub, said staff had no idea they were about to lose their jobs on Monday morning.
He said: "We were told on Saturday that’s we were shutting for two days - on Monday and Tuesday - for refurbishment. We then found out on the Monday that we all lost our jobs, weeks after we all were reassured our jobs were safe and this liquidation wouldn't affect us.
"We also weren’t told about that until we seen it reported on the news. It’s a shame as the team was very hard working and to have no warning just shows they don’t care about their employees.
"Things were never transparent and support was scarce. I have met the most amazing, hard-working staff in their venues and they really don’t deserve them."
The Record has seen evidence to suggest Macmerry workers are still seeing taxes and pensions deducted from their wages without being passed on to HMRC and pension provider Nest - weeks after HMRC sought to shut down the company via the courts over unpaid taxes. Nest is understood to have reported Belford Ltd to the Pensions Regulator in the last week.
However, the pension provider said it could not comment on specifics, adding: "Making pension contributions is a legal requirement and we are committed to making sure employers are compliant and members receive the contributions in their accounts that they have worked to earn."
A spokesperson for the Pensions Regulator said: "We do not comment on specific employers or schemes unless it is appropriate to do so."
Donaldson said former employees had an "agenda" against him and denied that the company was under scrutiny from regulators. He did not respond directly to the Record's questions concerning comments made by staff.
He said: "The company always has and always will meet their obligations to staff as their employer. If you talk directly to our teams you will understand this."
Donaldson and McMenemy's former business partner Richard Davies, who founded Abandon Ship as a clothing brand before cutting ties with it in May, said the loss of staff would "weigh on my shoulders longer than anyone else's words will". Davies, who now runs The Last Rodeo bar in Glasgow, wrote on social media: "It was no longer my business and I am not privy to the decisions that led to this."
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