Workers laid off from a scandal-hit clinical waste firm face losing thousands of pounds owed in overtime and holiday pay.
Hundreds of staff were made redundant from Lanarkshire-based Healthcare Environmental Services (HES) at Christmas when the firm lost all of its NHS work because of a backlog of waste at its sites.
Workers faced a five-month wait for wages as HES owner Garry Pettigrew refused to fold the firm before finally being forced into liquidation last month.
This week, staff were told they would finally receive long-awaited wage arrears by the end of the month.
But a letter from an insolvency agency revealed company records do not hold sufficient information for them to release the rest of their hard-earned cash.
However, an MSP said there was more than enough cash to pay staff what they are due. The SNP’s Alex Neil, MSP for Shotts, said Pettigrew wants all money due to workers to be released.
He said: “The NHS are paying invoices going back to October that is providing money which could many times over pay the workers what they are owed.
“Between the liquidators and the bank, they should be able to make sure that happens. Quite frankly, I don’t believe the information is not available in the records.
“I was told by Garry Pettigrew he would cooperate fully to try and make sure the workers get the money they are entitled to.”
HES ceased trading in December with the loss of 150 jobs at its Shotts HQ and more across the UK.
Lawyers acting for the workers said they could be owed more than £1million.
