Former employees of Quad-City Die Casting have filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition in hopes of recovering $200,000 they say is owed them in medical bill reimbursements and vacation pay they never received.

The petition was filed last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Peoria, Ill.

About 100 Quad-City Die workers — including 70 members of Local 1174, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, or UE, — lost their jobs when the Moline plant closed in September.

Carl Rosen, regional president for UE, said instead of filing bankruptcy, Quad-City Die chose in the spring to turn over assets to a liquidation company, High Ridge Partners of Chicago. By going that route, there is no court oversight of transactions.

He said using an assignee like High Ridge “works in some cases.”

“And in some cases, if one of the creditors — or more than one — feels it (the liquidation) is not working effectively, they can ask that a bankruptcy judge intervene. The workers are requesting it become a regular bankruptcy to make sure everybody is being treated fairly.”

This week, an auction of some Quad-City Die equipment took place — but only after a bankruptcy judge granted High Ridge’s request for emergency joint motion to allow it to continue as planned.

Wells Fargo is the lead creditor for Quad-City Die. When contacted Thursday, Wells Fargo declined comment on the involuntary bankruptcy petition. Representatives of High Ridge and attorneys for Quad-City Die did not return phone calls Thursday seeking comment.

According to the emergency joint motion, High Ridge reported that this spring it had “successfully completed collection of Quad-City Die’s accounts receivable, which totaled $830,000 … and production of inventory banks for 10 major customers, resulting in additional sales of $3.1 million” over the summer. From those proceeds, $1.8 million was applied to debt owed to Wells Fargo.

The motion also reported that by continuing production and sales for about 16 weeks, High Ridge was able to rehire 23 former employees. The liquidator paid $299,000 in medical benefits stipends from employees in lieu of the self-insured medical coverage previously provided by Quad-City Die.

But Rosen said employees had to take on the additional work and were not allowed to take vacations.

“We don’t think it’s fair that the fruits of our employees’ labors, which allowed the bank to be paid down $1.8 million … (that the employees) should not be paid the full amount they are owed,” said Chicago attorney Scott Clar, who is representing the former workers in the case.

Rosen said the judge ultimately will make two decisions: Whether the court accepts full jurisdiction for the case and whether the money will be distributed immediately.

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