ABOUT 40 Ballarat workers were laid off yesterday as a Doveton St Nth furniture manufacturer went into administration.
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Venwood Furniture broke the news to workers at 1pm yesterday after the manufacturer's Canberra parent company, Melwood, went under forcing three factories to close on the one day.
Union organisers will meet with administrators at 11am today to discuss the future viability of the company, but they doubt jobs can be saved.
Federated Furnishing Trades Society regional organiser Gary Winstanley said the situation was bleak.
"At this stage it's probably pretty doubtful that there'll be any jobs left at the end of this ... all we can do is try and make sure that their entitlements and any money that they're owed is shored up."
Mr Winstanley said some of the employees had worked for the company for more then 10 years and were owed redundancy and annual leave money as well as the last three months' superannuation payments. He said workers
were entitled to up to eight weeks redundancy pay.
In a letter to employees, Venwood owners Matthew and Justine Power told workers that, in the worst case scenario, they would be "priority creditors" and would have a "right to recovery" for money owed.
"We would like to thank all of you for your hard work, application, dedication and team work. We are sorry we couldn't deliver a better outcome," the letter read.
About 15 employees are believed to have found work with Eureka Office Furniture.
The remaining workers - cabinet makers, carpenters, labourers and other tradespeople - will most likely join the hunt for jobs.
Ballarat Trades Hall secretary Graeme Shearer said the situation was serious.
We can never be confident in these circumstances. We do fear the worst but we'll be working to achieve the best possible outcome we can," he said.
"We can never afford to lose any jobs in Ballarat, let alone the magnitude of 40 jobs which will have an impact on the economy."
Employee of 10 years Craig Jones said he and his workmates "could see the writing on the wall" on Tuesday. "Management were here pretty early, so we knew something was up," he said.
Sales manager Lachlan Adam was one of the managers left to break the bad news to employees yesterday.
He said the company had been going downhill for about 12 months but still had about $1 million worth of work on the books.
Venwood owners have blamed the company's collapse on an plant machinery purchase which failed to work and resulted in "substantial losses of production and cost inefficiencies."
Melwood has a initiated a multi-million dollar law suit against the supplier.
