Sign up with Googlejosef.van.niekerk
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- Apr 5, 2011
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I am an ex-employee of Soshlr SA, South Africa, and until recently, operated as a senior developer amongst about 30 colleagues at Soshlr SA. American based Manalto (ASX:MTL) is the holding company of Soshlr SA. Soshlr is a non-revenue generating division of Manalto, with our understanding, making Manalto legally responsible for any debt, taxation and salaries incurred in South Africa.
On 25 July 2017, our South African office received an email from chairman, Jim McKerlie, stating that Manalto is unable to pay salaries. This was not the first occurrence of the company being in arrears with salary payments. This second wave of salaries in arrears has broken employee trust and has forced all South African staff members to urgently seek other employment in order to generate income to care for their families and mitigate disruption in their personal financial budgets.
A total of 32 people was affected, and left without income. Manalto has not taken the right measures to ensure legal retrenchment of staff members as required by South African law. Communication with the shuffling board is at best horrible, and with the company kicking some of its board members out recently, we are expecting this to become even worse.
On 26 July, the South African office doors were simply locked, accounts were suddenly blocked and access to source code repositories revoked without any written notice on what the company is planning on doing. Up to this point, we have still no idea what happened and we are in the dark with Manalto not communicating with us at all. We want to demand our salaries, but don't even know who to run to.
According to an ASX report, the Australian based chairman, Jim McKerlie, received remuneration of $108 816 for September – August 2017, just before jumping ship leaving the company. Other board members received much smaller amounts. We, their personnel members have for the last two months not received a cent in salaries from Manalto. This is rather absurd that directors take care of themselves, and leave their employees in the dark like this.
We would like to take the steps required to start an official inquiry, and demand Manalto to answer on why it is not paying its staff members, and what their plans are to remunerate work done by its South African team of 32.
The South African team, gave their absolute best at developing Manalto’s products, and we all have received a bastard slap in the face from Manalto withholding salaries, so they can rather pay their directors.
We believe the company is now trying to avoid paying salaries by playing games, including liquidating Soshlr and shuffling their board, in this leaving its staff awaiting up to 2-3months salaries.
After director payouts, it is not surprising there is no money to pay salaries, however, Jim McKerlie’s payout alone would have been enough to pay nearly every staff member in the South African branch.
If anyone has any idea what process we can follow to pressurise Manalto to pay our salaries, even a reference to a good lawyer specializing in this field, would be helpful.
We would love to raise funding to take the company to court, we just need the right contacts, so any recommendations and advice would be greatly appreciated.
On 25 July 2017, our South African office received an email from chairman, Jim McKerlie, stating that Manalto is unable to pay salaries. This was not the first occurrence of the company being in arrears with salary payments. This second wave of salaries in arrears has broken employee trust and has forced all South African staff members to urgently seek other employment in order to generate income to care for their families and mitigate disruption in their personal financial budgets.
A total of 32 people was affected, and left without income. Manalto has not taken the right measures to ensure legal retrenchment of staff members as required by South African law. Communication with the shuffling board is at best horrible, and with the company kicking some of its board members out recently, we are expecting this to become even worse.
On 26 July, the South African office doors were simply locked, accounts were suddenly blocked and access to source code repositories revoked without any written notice on what the company is planning on doing. Up to this point, we have still no idea what happened and we are in the dark with Manalto not communicating with us at all. We want to demand our salaries, but don't even know who to run to.
According to an ASX report, the Australian based chairman, Jim McKerlie, received remuneration of $108 816 for September – August 2017, just before jumping ship leaving the company. Other board members received much smaller amounts. We, their personnel members have for the last two months not received a cent in salaries from Manalto. This is rather absurd that directors take care of themselves, and leave their employees in the dark like this.
We would like to take the steps required to start an official inquiry, and demand Manalto to answer on why it is not paying its staff members, and what their plans are to remunerate work done by its South African team of 32.
The South African team, gave their absolute best at developing Manalto’s products, and we all have received a bastard slap in the face from Manalto withholding salaries, so they can rather pay their directors.
We believe the company is now trying to avoid paying salaries by playing games, including liquidating Soshlr and shuffling their board, in this leaving its staff awaiting up to 2-3months salaries.
After director payouts, it is not surprising there is no money to pay salaries, however, Jim McKerlie’s payout alone would have been enough to pay nearly every staff member in the South African branch.
If anyone has any idea what process we can follow to pressurise Manalto to pay our salaries, even a reference to a good lawyer specializing in this field, would be helpful.
We would love to raise funding to take the company to court, we just need the right contacts, so any recommendations and advice would be greatly appreciated.
