The exact number of staff affected is unclear.

ProPrint spoke to Frank Todisco, the former managing director of PrintLinx (Todisco was declared an undischarged bankrupt on 8 July 2010, according to the National Personal Insolvency Index).

Todisco claimed PrintLinx had 150 staff, though only 38 were in the meeting on Monday.

He told ProPrint: “PrintLinx is fully functional, we are employing our people until next Wednesday”, though also confirmed they had all been dismissed following the meeting on Monday.

Todisco said staff would be getting holiday pay and long service leave but not redundancy pay. He claimed “we definitely did not make them redundant. We have to close down PrintLinx because of legal reasons.”

ProPrint spoke to one employee, who said he had been promised his long service leave and holiday pay, and had been told to expect them next week.

The employee added that staff had been “kept in the dark” and he was unclear what was going on.

PrintLinx has been at the centre of a rent dispute with Australian Unity, which is responsible for the site at 706 Lorimer St.

Todisco said: “We have had to dismiss all our staff and close down PrintLinx because we will be attacked by Australian Unity and within six months PrintLinx would be placed in liquidation anyway.”

PrintLinx also owns the former Printing Authority of Tasmania site, which is “operating as normal”, according to staff at the Hobart site.

The Tasmania plant, which was renamed Print Applied Technology following the PrintLinx acquisition in 2007, is heavily unionised, though a representative from the AMWU’s Hobart office told ProPrint they were not aware of the situation.

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