Anger among workers at ACL Bearing in Launceston has boiled over, after revelations two directors took redundancy payouts at the height of the company's financial turmoil.
Former ACL executive directors Michael Saward and John Capuano were made redundant following a restructure of the company in the middle of last year, while the company's workers worked four days a week in exchange for a 20per cent pay cut.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver said it was "morally corrupt" for the pair to receive their redundancy payments when workers at the company were owed $30m in entitlements and would receive only 30c in the dollar.
"The workers are shattered -- they feel like they've been kicked in the guts because they've given their loyal service to the company for many, many years only to find that the directors have been looked after and they've been left basically with nothing," Mr Oliver said.
The survival of ACL is crucial for the car industry, especially Ford, which does not have an alternative supplier of bearings for its locally made cars and is owed $3m by the company.
Toyota also relies on bearings and gaskets produced by ACL. The company received a $7m federal bailout in June, of which $5m was banked. It also received a $2m federal grant in May last year and $300,000 from the Tasmanian government.
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