Fun and games at Moviflor, the furniture store that agreed to a Special Revitalisation Process in the Commercial Court of Lisbon in December 2013, and then continued to treat its staff like excess stuffing.
Wage arrears mounted despite court instructions to clear them. Not even the redundancy payments were paid as agreed under the special plan to help save the business.
Employees and creditors have accused the company of putting Moviflor through a court process to buy time and it had no intention of honouring the legal agreements made.
Moviflor changed its name to Albará on October 13th but the Ministério Público still is investigating the closure of the Moviflor furniture stores that operated under the Special Revitalisation Process for almost a year until their final closure on October 1, 2014.
The revitalisation plan was almost forced onto the company following a complaint by the Union of Trade and Services Workers of Portugal that its members working at Moviflor had not been paid wages despite management promises.
Then the company closed its doors having failed to keep to the financial regime agreed with the court. In fact the union claims that not a single payment to workers was been made under the terms of the PER which stated that regular payment of wages had to be made.
In December 2013, members of the parliamentary group of the PCP put questions to parliament outlining, "the dramatic situation experienced by these workers and the despair of those who have several months of unpaid wages."
This weekend in Lisbon a shiny new business opened at the old Moviflor site in Bobadela, selling the same stock as Moviflor had and trading as if nothing had happened.
The unpaid Moviflor staff, many of whom have suffered the indignity of having to default on rents and mortgages, doubt the legality and legitimacy of the opening of the new furniture outlet.
"Lenders have the right to be informed about this new company run by the same people as owned Moviflor," complains Lidia Oliveira, one of the employees affected by collective dismissal in February.
According to today's edition of Publico, the new business in Bobadela, Lisbon is called the International Furniture Company, which according to the register at the Ministry of Justice, is a company created on 18 July this year and originally had as sole director one André Teixeira.
Less than a month later, on August 8, there were changes afoot as André Teixeira resigned and in his place Carlos Alberto Jesus Ribeiro stepped in to run the company.
Ribeiro was until August 4 this year the only administrator of Moviflor SGPS, the holding company that owns 75% of Moviflor Angola and that ran Moviflor in Portugal.
Besides debts with suppliers Moviflor was ages behind on paying its staff and to rub salt into the wound did not pay redundancy costs when staff had to be laid off as part of the recovery programme.
According to the financial results of 2013, Moviflor's losses exceeded €18.7 million (69% less than 2012), and sales were €31 million, down 63%.
Maybe the new store format will do better but the legality of the new store business carefully will be looked at to see if the director Carlos Alberto Jesus Ribeiro is operating within the law.
Comments
If it was known to be trading 'illegally' ... Why was there no urgent request made to a judge to force Moviflor to cease trading years ago - as in a more developed country ?
Why are these company owners never banged up awaiting trial for non-payment of employee benefits and wages ??
This actually links to the current legionella outbreak. Under Human Rights is the basic Right to Fresh Air.
But locals to this plant (and no doubt many others across Portugal) and the employees themselves were well aware for many years of noxious, unpleasant smells from chemical manfacturing plants just down the road.
Usually waking up to foul air as the venting was done at night.
Yet well aware and fearful of that fundamental Salazar maxim of survival that everyone over 40 knows by heart ... 'If you are not involved - it does not involve you'.
So then dying early of misdiagnosed 'pneumonia' ?