all Ellies Electronics staff were offered voluntary retrenchment packages<\/a> on 5 July, with severance capped at eight weeks’ pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis is the minimum applicable for eight years of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Staff would not be paid for leave not taken, and those who had served the company for decades would receive the same as someone who joined the company in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ellies also only offered voluntary retrenchment when the unions put up a fight. According to our source, the company initially wanted staff to sign mutual separation agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding insult to injury, the source said that 2\u20133 weeks before the voluntary retrenchment notices went out, some staff had received retrenchment packages recognising their full 20+ years of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the severance offers are being called voluntary retrenchment, our source said they were anything but.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Staff had no choice. They’ve all been coerced and put under duress to sign voluntary retrenchment,” the source said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They essentially said, ‘This is the best deal you’re going to be offered. You better take it.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SMD Technologies’ acquisition came three months after business rescue practitioner John Evans announced that Ellies Holdings was being liquidated as there was no reasonable prospect of rescuing the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That liquidation has now been made final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ellies went into voluntary business rescue on 31 January 2024 after a last-ditch deal to acquire alternative energy company Bundu Power fell through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ellies says its operating entity remains in business rescue, despite MyBroadband learning that staff have all been told not to come into work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":523288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[18911,68506,94013],"class_list":["post-553047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-ellies","tag-ellies-electronics","tag-ellies-holdings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553050,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553047\/revisions\/553050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}