Around 600 staff have either lost their jobs or are facing the axe across Geon's east coast operations, with three sites in Queensland closed on 4 March and the New South Wales and Victorian operations sold to Blue Star on 5 March.           

About 100 employees were dismissed in Queensland, although a skeleton staff has been temporarily retained.

Blue Star is closing the three Geon sites it acquired: Mt Waverley, which had about 200 staff; Banksmeadow, which had about 250; and the mailing operation in Parramatta, which had about 50.

Blue Star's managing director, Geoff Selig, said on 6 March that the group would offer jobs to "a meaningful number of Geon employees"; ProPrint understands that only a minority have since been offered work, with reports of around 50 people from Sydney and Melbourne, many in sales roles.

Selig could not be reached for comment today.

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Workers have been told to consult the Federal government's Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) program for help in claiming their entitlements.

It is understood that the receivers, McGrath Nicol, have been communicating with the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Bill Shorten, to speed up the FEG process.

James O'Brien, who worked in pre-press at Geon's Brisbane site, told ProPrint: "I have worked eight-and-a-half years through blood, sweat and tears to stay in a wage freeze for this company.

O'Brien blasted the "cold-hearted, spineless treatment from the receivers", who told him "that I have to fight through FEG to get my entitlements of annual leave of over 120 hours, long service and redundancy".

O'Brien was particularly angry that he and other workers were let go without a separation certificate.

One Mt Waverley employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told ProPrint the redundancies were handled in an "absolutely disgraceful" way, because staff weren't given separation certificates, notified about the value of their entitlements or offered counselling.

She was also critical of Geon's senior management for failing to keep staff in the loop in the months leading up to the company's collapse.

"The fact we were asked to take pay cuts in September was indicative of things going badly. But the fact it was going that badly did come as a surprise to everybody," she said.

[Feature: What will emerge from the Geon ashes?]

Another Brisbane employee accused senior management of being "very unprofessional". "A lot of people are asking a lot of questions [about the collapse] as to why and what has happened. People at the top of the tree knew what was going on," he said.

He also said the receivership had been handled poorly by McGrath Nicol. "There seemed to be a lot of miscommunication between different people, including between the sites, and different receivers at different sites were giving different instructions to different people."

McGrath Nicol could not be reached for comment.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said Brisbane staff had been poorly treated by Geon and the receivers.

"Our members on the site realised there was a big problem for months and months. They knew there was something going on but the management seemed to be in denial," said Queensland printing division secretary Danny Dougherty.

"[The layoffs] were handled pretty badly. There was certainly no compassion for those workers that lost their jobs and not a lot of assistance… There were people in tears and people not understanding what had happened," he told ProPrint.

"The workers have effectively lost everything and they've really been left swinging in the breeze. It's been really poorly handled. I know there's a lot of anger around."

According to a Centrelink spokesperson: "Employers who make staff redundant are obligated to provide their affected staff with a separation certificate, if requested.

"Ultimately, it is up to the person who has been made redundant to obtain an Employment Separation Certificate from their employer. If the employer is unable to provide one, there are other options available. For example, all the necessary information can be provided on a company letterhead as an alternative," said the spokesperson.

"Having said this, if a person doesn't have a separation certificate from their employer, Centrelink can contact the employer and request this on the person's behalf.

"Employers are obliged to then provide the separation certificate to Centrelink within 14 days; this is covered under the Social Security Administration Act 1999."

The spokesperson recommended any workers contact Centrelink as soon as possible, whether or not they had a certificate.

[Related: Ups and downs of Geon]

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