Lederer given red card over Wanderers move
By IAN KIRKWOOD Jan. 3, 2014, 10 p.m.
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THE meatworkers’ union is angry that Primo Smallgoods chief executive Paul Lederer is considering buying into the Western Sydney Wanderers football team while ‘‘crying poor’’ in enterprise bargaining negotiations for Scone abattoir.

Mr Lederer, whose family holds a substantial minority stake in Primo after selling the rest of the company to a private equity firm in 2011 for a reported price of more than $900million, is a director of the Wanderers.

Like Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy, Mr Lederer’s background is Hungarian, and the two are regarded as close friends.

The federation owns the Wanderers, who are in their second season, and has reportedly hired investment bank UBS to sell the club with an estimated value of between $11million and $15million.

The Lederer syndicate is believed to include businessman Peter Duncan – whose hydraulics business, Pirtek, is a Wanderers sponsor – and a Chinese businessman.

Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union branch secretary Grant Courtney said he had nothing against the Wanderers but it was hard for his members to read that Mr Lederer was looking to buy into a football club at the same time as he was saying his company could not afford the pay rise they were after.

As the Newcastle Herald reported late last year, union members at the Scone abattoir went on strike twice before Christmas over an enterprise agreement.

Mr Lederer responded by signing an ‘‘open letter to the Scone community’’, published as a newspaper advertisement, which described the strike action as ‘‘irrational and ridiculous’’.

‘‘The union demands are totally unreasonable and will only destroy more jobs in the industry,’’ Mr Lederer wrote.

The union produced its own open letter two days later, saying its members had ‘‘taken offence to the comments made by Mr Lederer’’, saying ‘‘this company can hardly cry poor turning over $1.2billion a year with its chief executive one of the richest men in the meat industry’’.

A Primo spokesman said yesterday that the union was distorting the picture.

‘‘For nine years while the Scone plant was not profitable, Paul Lederer pumped money into keeping it going and everyone employed,’’ the spokesman said.

Mr Courtney said Primo ‘‘pays the lowest wages in meat processing around the country’’, and the workers employed through third-party labour hire companies earned even less.

He said his members were concerned that the Chinese businessman reported as a syndicate member may have been associated with labour hire firms used at Scone but Mr Lederer said ‘‘there is no Chinese labour hire company involved with the club’’.

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2004329/lederer-given-red-card-over-wanderers-move/?cs=305

has FFA ever talked about where revenue for club licenses go/where money from this will go? Is going back to pay-off set-up costs for the Wanderers or could we see this making it to grass roots football

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

-PB

dirty business

everything about the wanderers stinks, from the fans to the owners its like theyre a criminal organization

This is hilarious. Clearly the meat workers union has no idea how business works. The man and the company are two different things, and one business has nothing to do with another. Its not Lederer crying poor anyway, its the company. Love the name "The Lederer Syndicate", sounds like some hungarian mafia...wait a sec...

This is hilarious. Clearly the meat workers union has no idea how business works. The man and the company are two different things, and one business has nothing to do with another. Its not Lederer crying poor anyway, its the company. Love the name "The Lederer Syndicate", sounds like some hungarian mafia...wait a sec...

Yes, the man and the company are very different things - company is worth $600m and he holds the majority of the shares, so there's no way at all that his personal wealth is linked to the success of the company, and no way at all that keeping the costs down at the company could possibly lead to the share price, and therefore his personal worth being greater.

Or maybe the fortune he has amassed over his life creating jobs and prosperity for his employees, is his to do with what he pleases.

According to dimwit unionists, he should be using his personal wealth to subsidise their unsustainable wage claims. What happens when that runs out? Or better yet, when Atlas shrugs?

Or maybe the fortune he has amassed over his life creating jobs and prosperity for his employees, is his to do with what he pleases.

According to dimwit unionists, he should be using his personal wealth to subsidise their unsustainable wage claims.

its the workers labour that made him rich. his wealth sits on the shoulders of thousands. selfish cunt should pay his workers.

More or less this.

Lederer eh? Does that make WSW the new Hakoah?

Kosher Nostra :lol:

I'm gonna have fun with this.

can anyone tell me Whether we have previously had a union complaint when an individual has invested into any australian sporting franchise before

And you would like to know this because...?

I support Unions and want big business and rich people to pay their fair share, but this is fucking ridiculous. It's like tying what happens at Microsoft to Bill Gates, with workers complaining about their pay being lower than it would if Gates didn't give money to charity.

And you would like to know this because...?

because i am preparing a paper of the history of unions complaining when an individual has made an investment into an australian sporting franchise