No pension for RT workers

The Aberdeen-based Richard Textiles, which went under receivership in 2002, has caused more problems for its approximately 1000 employees concerning their pension. The employees will lose their pensions due to technical issues following the company's closure last November. The pension scheme for Richard Textiles went into receivership before the company itself did.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) maintains that it cannot compensate the workers because the firm kept trading when its pension scheme had collapsed. There are currently investigations under way to find a solution on who will be eligible for money under the department's Financial Assistance Scheme. Ministers are expected to announce details some time this year. The DWP has a reserve of GBP400 million to provide for those who have lost their pensions when their companies went belly up, but with the necessary preconditions attached.

Employees of the textile company are currently pressuring the department to include them when it announces who will benefit from the scheme. A large of these employees contributed to the company pension scheme for thirty years before the company's collapse. Liquidators were summoned in November 2004 after a number of financial disasters befell the 200-year-old company. Ian Suttie, a local businessman, had attempted a buyout after the company went under receivership in 2002, but to no avail.