Charley McDowell, apprentice carpenter
Charley McDowell, 19, from Strood in Kent, was on a two-year carpentry apprenticeship with Carillion and was due to finish in May. He was working at a housing project in Ebbsfleet.
Along with 12 other trainee carpenters, he had his apprenticeship transferred to a new employer, Lee Construction. At the time, McDowell said he was relieved – “a huge weight off our shoulders”. But since then he and the other trainee carpenters have discovered that they will have to do another year before qualifying.
“I would have got signed off now,” he said. “Our wages would have gone up, they would have doubled or tripled.” He is getting paid £45 a day as a trainee, which goes up to £100-plus a day for a fully qualified carpenter in the first year and £200 or more thereafter.
Ashley Pampling
Another former Carillion trainee, who has been working at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford. Pampling, who is about to finish his apprenticeship, will get a job with Serco when he leaves. He said only the level two apprentices were transferred while the level one trainees were let go.
Neil Skinner, Johnson Brothers
The joinery business in Oldham near Manchester is owed £147,000 by Carillion, some of which dates back more than a year. Creditors have been told they will eventually get back less than 1p for every £1 owed. The company’s annual turnover is £1m and the shortfall will push it into an annual loss. The owner, Neil Skinner, had to make two workers redundant, so that he now employs only eight, and he will forgo his own paycheck this year.
“Everyone knows Carillion were bad payers if they paid at all,” he said. “We got some work, but we are still struggling. We have to use our bank overdraft to pay for our materials. Fingers crossed, we’ll scrape by this year.”
He added: “My gripe with Carillion, apart from their horrible practice of not paying small subbies [subcontractors] as a norm, is that they have clearly ‘bought’ contracts and ultimately made us, their employees and so on suffer the consequences.”
