BY STEPHEN O'BRIEN
NEWCASTLE — A photo of STP bosses Stephen and Bradley Weeks with the caption "wanted for unpaid workers' entitlements of over $3 million" is appearing around Newcastle as part of the support campaign for 220 workers owed money by the Steel Tube and Pipe (STP) group.
"They've got plenty of assets — it's just nothing was left in the companies that employed us", STP worker Wayne Muller told Green Left Weekly.
For years the STP group developed asset stripping to a fine art transferring anything of potential value, including the workers, between different parts of the group.
As word about the Weeks, their dodgy business affairs, and opulent lifestyle has become public, the brothers have gone underground.
"We went down and picketed their weekender — a two storey mansion with boat sheds and the whole works five metres from the Lake Macquarie waterfront", Bill Philps commented. Another of their houses is perched on a cliff face with spectacular views over the ridge in the beachside suburb of Merewether Heights.
The Weeks would only have to sell one of their luxurious abodes to pay the workers what they owe.
"We are way down on the list of creditors. First it's the Weeks themselves through their Malaysian subsidiary, then it's their mother, then it's the National Bank. After they've all been paid the receivers will probably say that like Mother Hubbard the cupboard is bare", Muller explained.
The 24 hour picket outside the STP factory is continuing. Valuable products are still inside and the unionists are adamant that "We'll stay till they pay".
Donations to the STP workers fund can be made to: Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Steel Tank and Pipe Workers Fighting Fund, BSB: 062174, Account No. 10187530, Commonwealth Bank.