Electrical workers stood down from the ASIO building site after the collapse of engineering firm Hastie are set to be re-employed on the project, according to their union.
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But the Electrical Trades Union said it was still chasing entitlements for the Heyday employees, who lost their jobs when Hastie went into administration last week under an estimated $150 million in debt.
NSW-ACT assistant secretary Neville Betts said the union had spent the past week negotiating with the building manager for the ASIO site, Lend Lease, for the 60 workers to be given new jobs on the project.
He said a handful were already back on site and he hoped most of the 60 would return this week.
''From those discussions, we're quite confident we'll have most, if not all of those workers, back on that project under a different employer,'' Mr Betts said.
''It's taken a lot of work, but we're very pleased about that progress.''
Mr Betts said the union had also found new work for 30 out of 38 ACT apprentices caught up in the Hastie collapse and he was confident the rest would be offered jobs this week.
But he said the organisation was chasing entitlements for all stood-down Heyday staff, some of whom had accumulated as much as 10 weeks' annual leave.
''We've got young people, families, paying for a roof over their head, who have well in excess of $10,000 owed to them,'' he said. ''It's a disgrace and it should not be allowed to happen in this country.''
Mr Betts said the union wanted Lend Lease to pay out lost wages and entitlements for Heyday workers on the ASIO site. ''At the end of the day, the people responsible are the project managers and the client and they should have done proper due diligence in terms of contractors they put on the project,'' he said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Finance said Lend Lease had terminated the Hastie Group subcontract arrangements for work on the ASIO project. ''The managing contractor is continuing to investigate options to mitigate any impact to the project as a result of the voluntary administration of the Hastie Group,'' she said.
