Workers at the collapsed City Link parcel delivery service face losing their jobs on New Year's Eve, according to the RMT union.
Staff at the firm, which employed 48 people at a depot close in the Dukes Way industrial estate close to Chelmer Village, were told on Christmas Day they had gone into administration.
Administrators Ernst & Young, which held meetings with union officials, confirmed substantial redundancies were expected over the next few days.
People waiting on orders are now being advised to pick up their parcels from the depot themselves.
Mick Cash, RMT General Secretary, said 2,000 staff will be made redundant on New Year's Eve
"It is crystal clear from today's meeting that there has been a truly horrific catalogue of mismanagement at City Link and that staff and their union have been starved of basic information while a plot was hatched to publicly collapse the business on Boxing Day when in fact it was already declared insolvent," he said.
"What a despicable and callous manipulation of thousands of workers and their livelihoods over Christmas as the venture capitalists cut and run leaving a trail of chaos and misery in their wake.
"Vince Cable has said he will meet us in the New Year. Clearly that is too late and the business will have been smashed to pieces by then as the asset strippers hover like vultures over the corpse.
Ernst and Young said City Link had racked up a series of losses over the years and did not have the cash to turn the business around.
The firm is now looking at expressions of interest for different sections of the company.
