Sacked staff at Bonds Wear Unanderra have been asked to remain loyal to the company and not leave before their redundancies are due, a union delegate said yesterday.
Workers of both Bonds and the KingGee factory at Bellambi have also been told they would be given six weeks' notice before their respective plants closed and anyone who left before then would not receive their redundancy entitlements.
South Coast Trades and Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said it was yet to be determined whether that was legal.
"I don't think it's clear cut and there may well be a case to say that this is deceptive on the part of the employer," he said.
Almost 300 workers at the Illawarra factories will be left without jobs after parent company Pacific Brands' decision on Wednesday to close the plants.
Nationwide 1850 jobs will go over 18 months.
Textiles, Clothing and Footwear union delegate Maryanne Micalles said two representatives of Pacific Brands addressed Unanderra staff on Wednesday, asking them not to leave the company in the lurch.
"They spoke about loyalty to the company, that there was still work to be done," Ms Micalles said.
"They're still getting orders. If everybody left, there'd be no-one here to finish their orders.
"They were encouraging loyalty. Our response was, 'Where's our loyalty?"'
Another employee, who asked not to be named, said staff were given an opportunity to ask questions at the lunchtime meeting, but left without the answers they needed.
"We had about 20 questions and we didn't get any straight answers," she said. "Every question we asked would just be answered with 'I don't know, I'll put it to the board'. We weren't told anything.
"We asked that if someone gets a job in a month would they still get their entitlements," she said.
"They said no, but we would still have to give our six weeks' notice."
A KingGee staff member, who asked not to be named, said many employees arrived at work in tears yesterday, still shocked by the closure decision.
"The company has always been very good to us and there are people who think there is still a chance someone will change their mind," she said.
Mr Rorris said withholding payouts if employees left early was "a deliberate ploy to avoid paying staff their entitlements".
"The redundancy period starts when they are given that six weeks' notice. The problem is they've already told them their jobs are gone, but they won't tell them when that six-week period starts," he said.
"Clearly the employer is making these workers redundant. Just because they are not giving them the exact date doesn't alter that fact."
He said the request that workers remain loyal had taken the situation from "the offensive to the absolute farcical".
The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union has urged the Federal Government to guarantee redundant workers' full entitlements.
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