Riverside Meats closed in March 2018 and went into voluntary liquidation, causing about 40 people to lose their jobs.
In May 2021, Riverside Meats owner Chris Peat sat down with former employee James Henshaw and agreed to settle a matter of unfair dismissal as part of the Fair Work Commission process.
However, a week later Mr Peat began ignoring all correspondence with his former employee and the settlement document was never signed, according to Mr Henshaw.
On July 30 the FWC was brought back in to mediate the negotiations after Mr Henshaw wrote to them about numerous pieces of ignored correspondence across June and July.
In his letter to the FWC, Mr Henshaw said he and Mr Peat had arrived at an in-principle agreement on June 3 but this offer had since been withdrawn by Mr Peat.
“We have not received any correspondence or a signed copy of the deed since this time,” Mr Henshaw and his representative wrote.
“We respectfully request this matter be re-opened and allocated to a member of the commission for arbitration.”
Commissioner Michelle Bissett ordered a conference to determine what was happening, but the conference was only attended by Mr Henshaw and his representative.
“No-one from the respondent (Riverside Meats) attended and attempts to contact Mr Peat were not successful,” Commissioner Bissett reported.
The case has been allocated for arbitration and the FWC will make the final decision on what compensation is owed to Mr Henshaw.
Riverside Meats has been closed since 2018 but in September and October 2020 the business placed advertisements for a quality assurance manager in the Riverine Herald and Country News.
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