Jõhvi Bakery Workers Finally Laid Off
Months of financial limbo are about to end for 71 employees of the failed Järle bread factory in Jõhvi – the company's management has formally declared that it is cutting them from its payroll as of May 31.
The move ironically marks an improvement in the situation of the workers, who have not been paid since the company shut down operations at the beginning of the year. The fact that they had not been officially let go has thus far made them ineligible to receive state unemployment benefits.
Court officials had for weeks been unable to reach the company's management to remedy the situation, but now Maie Metsalu, head of the Unemployment Insurance Fund for Ida-Viru County, has received a letter from the managers confirming the staff reduction, the Severnoye Poberezhie newspaper reported.
"Once the people have been laid off, the fund can register them as unemployed and pay them benefits," she said.
By the end of May the workers will have been without pay for five months, and there's little hope that they will receive a cent of what they are owed as the company's coffers are empty and its assets are not enough to cover its heavy debts.
The firm's owner, controversial businessman Oliver Kruuda, recently had his personal assets seized by the Tax and Customs Board over the 3 to 5 million euros that his businesses owe in back taxes.
Steve Roman