Subbies

There is something I have never understood.  There is actually a plethora of things I have never understood, but this is one I see a bit of.  I have a feeling though, that no matter how much angst I feel, it will not change.
It has to do with sub-contractors when businesses go down.  It can happen in any endeavour, but I tend to hear about it in the building industry.  So often when a company goes down, I hear about the sub-contractors who have not been paid.  There is normally not much money to distribute from a failed company, but I wonder if it is fair that the banks get first dibs on the money.  Generally, that means there is nothing left for anyone else.  It is understood that in most endeavours, it is the bank that has invested the most.
I have no desire to see banks fail.  I want to see them do the right thing, but I do not want them to fail (the current thinking seems to be that we cannot afford to see the banks fail, and if that looks like happening, they are propped up by the government.) 
These figures may not be a true representation but over all they are a drop in the bucket.  A company may have gone under and as a result 50 subbies go under to.  50 subbies more often than not represent another two people.  It means 150 people have lost everything.  They have done work and invested time and resources in good faith.  Thankfully that good faith is mostly warranted.  There are bad apples, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
A company I dealt with was a bad apple.  I had to get the Ombudsman working for me because they did the wrong thing.  In fact, after I had made contact with the Ombudsman, I received a phone call from the company and I thought they were acting on his behalf.  Turns out they were not, and the Ombudsman said they would like to continue the case.  It is what I wanted too, and thankfully we won and all was made right.  Too often places need to be forced to do the right thing, as they will not do it unless forced into a corner.
The bank is faceless.  A bank was fined big time for doing the wrong thing.  The money they were fined was more than most of us would ever see in a life time.  The thing for me was that by the end of the next day the total amount of the fine had been made up by the interest they had earned.  Being fined was a set-back, but not the end of the story.  For subbies that lose everything, it can be the end of the story.
What I would like to see (and it may be dreaming) is subbies paid first and re-imbursements work up from the bottom to the top, rather than the top to the bottom.  150 people potentially losing everything causes me more angst than seeing a faceless institution suffer.  There is a good chance they will get their money back in a day anyway.  There would be exceptions, and cases would need to be treated on their merits.
No doubt there would be ramifications.  I would prefer that no one went under and that all made a profit, but unfortunately that is not always the case. At the moment the arrangement seems to be weighted in the banks favour.  To change things may mean short term pain for long term gain.