Employer holding back pay?

[VMLondon]

Hi,

My girlfriend is the deputy manager of a nursery (of the childs kind) that is a small chain of 3 nurseries.

The owners are the kind who are totally in it for the profit, always implementing measures spur of the moment and seemingly with little thought or regard for their employees situations.

The latest is they are holding back a weeks pay until the person leaves as they 'sort wages' on the months 3rd month, and anyone working their notice period have a tendancy not return for their 4th week.

Being December, this is a bad month to do this, let alone the fact the wages as non-management is very poor in nurseries, added to the fact there are some girls working there that struggle as it is, my girlfriend is very concerned about one or two of them in particular. So, is this legal? They are doing this with a notice being put up today, and this effects their December pay!




As a side note, her name is on the company credit card, the card was declined for non payment the other day, ans my girlfriend is always having to pass messages on of owing-people-money nature. Would her credit profile be affected by this?



Many thanks in advance.

[blindswelledrat]

Im not a solicitor.
Re: Business card- no it will not affect her credit rating. They are connected to a company account and use company addresses.
Re: Witholding pay- Depends on the contract but I would imagine that they can't. THis is purely a guess. What I would say is that they sound like they are struggling financially and you can't help wondering if this witholding of money is less about what thier official line is and more about attempting to ease a cash flow crisis.

[CurvaParabolica]

TBH holding pay whilst sorting out final salary is fairly common practice, at least it is for all the employers I've worked for (mostly multinational O&G companies). It's more practical for a company to make sure they get final payments correct rather than accidently over paying the employee and then having to chase them for repayment. It may seem simple enough to simply stop someone's pay, but there's more to it than most realise and can take longer than a few days to complete/process a P45.

[williamp]

Its likely they will want to run the same payroll for all the staff at the same time- its a lot easier then doing some individually, regardless of when they have left

[VMLondon]

Humm, the reasons for them doing it are questionable at best, but I am trying to see if it is legal or not? are there any specific laws/policies I can refer to?

I cant imagine this is legal, but if it is, there must be some stipulations?

Many thanks

[blindswelledrat]

VM, just to get this clear- are you saying that the Employer is irrelevantly taking a weeks pay from every employee to hold effectively forever until they leave, as some kind of security deposit?

[blindswelledrat]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/P...

THis would suggest they can do it only if it is in the contract and only if it keeps them above minimum wage

[VMLondon]

blindswelledrat said:

VM, just to get this clear- are you saying that the Employer is irrelevantly taking a weeks pay from every employee to hold effectively forever until they leave, as some kind of security deposit?

Exactly, thankyou. I could have made it clearer!

[VMLondon]

blindswelledrat said:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/P...

THis would suggest they can do it only if it is in the contract and only if it keeps them above minimum wage

Thank you, very helpful!

[Cyberprog]

And as they're only just making this the policy, I would assume that it's not in people's contracts currently. Has you OH got a copy of her contract?

[VMLondon]

Cyberprog said:

And as they're only just making this the policy, I would assume that it's not in people's contracts currently. Has you OH got a copy of her contract?

The contract, under pay section, states refer to employee handbook, which conviently is in the process of being updated.

To be fair, my girlfriend can survive, she recieves a reasonable wage, it is te lesser paid girls that will really struggle.

Anyway, the measure has been implemented and will go ahead this pay date (23rd dec). Really a prime example of an employer not considering their staff properly.

Thanks for your help


VMLondon

[Cyberprog]

Then until they actually update it, plus 30 days notice of a change (realistically) they cannot implement it! And obviously as others have said, if it causes people to dip below minimum wage they can't do it either!

[Upatdawn]

Credit check the company, you may not want them owing you wages if they are going under....

[Rude-boy]

Upatdawn said:

Credit check the company, you may not want them owing you wages if they are going under....

Some how I get the feeling that the cost of even a Eurolife search would not be far off 10% of one weeks net for most of them but if they club a few quid in each it's an idea.

[blindswelledrat]

I can do them for free if you want to PM me the company name