Ansett employees will face an avalanche of bills if companies holding off on mortgages and loans during the Ansett crisis begin to call in their debts.
Australian Services Union (ASU) Victorian secretary Martin Foley said thousands of staff had taken advantage of offers by banks and utility companies letting their loans and overdue bills ride as they waited to pick up jobs with the revamped Ansett airline.
When Tesna bosses Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox reneged on the sale deal last week, 4,000 people hoping for positions with the airline were left without an income.
"Now there are no jobs, and they don't have any way to repay these bills. They're stuffed," Foley said.
He said many employees had spent five months living on savings and a reduced income. Most were stood down without pay for several weeks when the airline was first grounded back in September last year.
"Some areas like technical support have come back to work almost full rosters, but most have been job sharing for five months," Foley said. "Operations staff have been lucky to pick up a shift or two a week."
Ansett administrators operated a scaled-back service as they prepared to sell the airline as a going concern. Preferred bidder Tesna had indicated it would extend the schedule taking on 3,000 staff.
"Employees really believed they were getting their jobs back because Mr Fox told them they would," Foley said. "When the sale didn't go ahead on January 29 and the deal was deferred some began to waver. But Mr Fox went on a roadshow around the country urging people not to jump ship.
"I've spoken to a couple of flight attendants from Perth who were offered jobs with Tesna and actually sold their houses and moved to Melbourne for the job," he said.
As well as the 4,000 staff, vying for the 3,000 jobs on offer, Tesna had signed contracts with 30 managers including James Hogan, former chief operating officer of British aviation giant British Midland, who returned to Melbourne to take on the role of chief executive.
The ACTU has hired leading barristers to look at legal options and may support a class action to assist employees who turned down other jobs and moved interstate on the understanding they had a position with the new Ansett.
The ASU has resumed its hardship fund to help Ansett families.
