To think this company is breaking the law somehow?

[Hocusypocus]

DP is in a supervisory role at a fairly well known High Street company and is charge of the team on nights. He's been there for three years and more often than not he will be underpaid at the end of the month, sometimes it is just any overtime that's missing but sometimes it's several entire night shifts worth of pay.

This morning he's having to deal with an angry bunch of staff members (the night team he supervises) who've mostly all been underpaid, again, some by several hundred pounds.

He doesn't deal with pay roll, that's not in his remit. He's also missing just over £100.

When this happens, which is often, he takes it up with the store manager who simply says it must have been a mistake and whatever is owed will be added onto the next month's wages. 'if' it is paid back then the staff then find themselves paying more tax the following month because they are essentially paid more, even though its what they are owed.

Store manager claims nothing can be done at the point of the incorrect wages being paid and they have no choice to wait until the next pay. The missing wages is not always returned, at one point DP was waiting several months to be reimbursed for a period of work he was underpaid for.

What is going on here?

This is appalling OP. It is absolutely outrageous that people are being underpaid by hundreds of pounds on a regular basis.

Tell DP to get the union involved on his behalf and try and get the other workers to join the union too.

Also ring ACAS for advice.They are brilliant.

And if the store manager is putting people who are employed on a night shift contract on day shifts to save money that sounds very dodgy indeed.

I think it's a very bad idea for the staff to withhold their labour, it will have serious repercussions; please try to persuade your dp to persuade them not to.

Use the Union. It doesn't matter whether all the staff are signed up or not, if some of them are the Union will deal with it, and much better than your dp and his staff will (and legally too!).

Thus is not a whistle-blowing matter.

Collective grievances are actually a double-edged sword, all the law around grievances only relates to individual ones so a company doesn't legally have to do anything with a group grievance.

Best route is the regional manager first.

If that brings no joy (as in a sensible process that works) then ask all staff to put in individual grievances at the same time. Ensure all staff are listing all their worked hours and noting what is single pay and what is overtime rates, then note that against what they get paid.

In terms of tax, with the level f staff you seem to be talking about there is very little chance the odd £400 in a month would push them into a higher tax bracket. But as pp have said, if that does happen it comes out at the end of the tax year.
I recently accidentally got put in the £100k+ tax bracket (hahahaha!) and phoned HMRC to ask about it, it was clear what the error was so they changed my tax code back to what it should be - so it can be dealt with.

If no joy from those two routes then they should write again, calling it a 'letter before action', explaining that they consider this to be an unlawful deduction for wages and will be seeking advice - they should then do that via the union or ACAS. The union might take up the case on the basis they are likely to get some new members as a result (but only really works if there is a recognition agreement).

Regional manager then Union. Sounds like a shambles tbh

Just to stress again though it is really important before firing off grievances and the like to understand what the store manager SHOULD be doing and when staff should legitimately expect to get paid for work done to make sure it is actually breaching this and just not taking longer than you’d like. Otherwise you Risk it being rejected.

In terms of tax, with the level f staff you seem to be talking about there is very little chance the odd £400 in a month would push them into a higher tax bracket

But if someone goes from earning £950 a month, so not paying any tax, to earning £1350 per month, they will pay some tax (and NI) that they wouldn't normally owe, and the amount could be significant to someone on low wages. There could also be the knock on effect in reducing their UC entitlement and I don't think they'd get any money back that their lost there, because it works on a rolling monthly basis (I think).

Thank you all for your good advice

Something else worth noting:

The night team workers are only on 16 hour contracts, but rotered to work 40+

Since joining the company they've been well aware they are expected to work three or four night shifts per week, twelve hours a night, yet the contracts only protect them for sixteen.

Dps contract is 30 hours but he has always worked five, twelve hour night shifts, per week from the very beginning. There hasn't been one week in three years where he has only worked 30 hours.

The contracts do not tally up with the hours any member of the night team works and are expected to work, all workers work a minimum of four night shifts per week as standard. Twelve hours a night. DP works five.

The fact that the night team DP supervises are only 'contracted' to work sixteen hours but consistently work a hell of a lot more, makes it easy for the store manager to threaten to put them them onto days if she so chooses.

I also wonder whether it could be that they are deliberately paid only their contracted hours, despite the fact its common knowledge they have to work far more.

Exploiting loopholes to stay within budget

It is a whistle blowing matter. Withholding wages is unethical. The ops partner can not go past the store manager to speak to payroll. It is likely that the store manager is withholding the wages. Therefore it is covered by the whistleblowing policy.

I don't know whether this is relevant but have been told that there's a wage budget that is calculated by the stores earnings, a percentage of those earnings is used to pay the wages. I'm not familiar with retail so unsure whether that's the norm.

This is the norm in retail, yes, when I worked in retail years ago ours was 7%, But we didn't not pay people to meet it, of course!
If we were over we cut back on overtime, stopped zero hours people who had been asked to do extra hours and had a sales drive if we could.
We had that target but we didn't live 'hand to mouth', it wasn't literally that weeks takings were used to pay staff - it was a budget thing, virtual, not the same actual money going from the tills into the staff pay packets (yes, I am old enough to remember being paid cash in a brown pay packet!).

When you do the lists of payments due and made, make sure you check payroll cut off dates - it is likely that if payday is last working day (for example) then cut off will be around 15th - so overtime would probably run 15th to 15th, while actual pay is usually (obvs some places pay differently, but whatever the contract says) for the whole calendar month.

Tax is paid cumulatively, but NI isn't, so it is possible that employees are over paying NI in a given period if all salary has been put through the payroll as though it was earned in that month/week.

From your latest update, it sounds like they might not even be getting NMW, unless their hourly rate is much higher at night.

Also this link says that the hours he works contravenes the working time directive (unless maybe they meet the rules using the 17 week averaging?).

This sounds awful OP and just another example of how badly some retail treats its staff.

It is a whistle blowing matter. Withholding wages is unethical. The ops partner can not go past the store manager to speak to payroll. It is likely that the store manager is withholding the wages. Therefore it is covered by the whistleblowing policy.

I'm not saying it's not unethical but if you read the actual law around Public Interest Disclosures, which is commonly called 'whistle blowing', it does not mention ethics. There is NO evidence the store manager is doing anything wrong on purpose.
Whistle blowing is all about where the law has been broken and where raising that (or a suspicion with reasonable belief) is in the public interest.

It gets vastly over used and it doesn't help anyone to use the wrong route as claims using the wrong route will get rejected.

Grievance is the correct route.

Absolutely disgusting! I know your dh needs to sort this but can he also look for a new job? A friends ds works nights for Tesco and clears a good wage.

@Hocusypocus

I've just sent you a message

My last employer would set a date (usually middle of the month) any over time (or sickness/time off ) before this date was taken into account for wages. Any after this date would reflect on the next months wages. We were paid the same date each month (give or take for bank holidays ) and the manager would recieve staffs pay slips atleast a week before actual payday so they could be checked and sent back to personell/payroll if there was any mistakes.

Most of our stores averaged 8-10 staff and I imagine b and m are atleast 30 however this sort of system should still be implemented as it's the easiest to know and rectify.

Also meant to add that if they are being paid wrongly and the next months wage is higher, if they have a student loan this will then be deducted from this wage (if theyre above the pay bracket- i cant remember how much that is off the top of my head) when this wage packet when it may not have been if they were paid properly.

Can people stop making up rubbish about tax. Higher tax is based on an annual cumulative amount of pay, you will not get taxed at higher rate because they pay you more in one month than the next unless
you were a higher rate taxpayer

Ok no one meant a higher rate of tax, but if one month you earn enough you will pay tax that month(basic rate) Yes eventually you get it back but that can be months. In the meantime that few quid can make a difference.
If that happens say 4 times in a year, it's no longer a few quid.
It happens to me on good overtime months. I know next September I will get a refund but if I was skint that's no good.

I think it's a very bad idea for the staff to withhold their labour, it will have serious repercussions; please try to persuade your dp to persuade them not to
It's a terrible idea to withhold labour, but I suspect the company is going under so they may as well try to find another job and hopefully not get caught up in the inevitable mess. Plus how do you get to work when your short a weeks wages?

I hate stuff like this! how the hell are people managing on such huge underpayments? I am currently going thru similar at work. Every time I take holidays I am underpaid. I have spoken to manager, hr and acas. The multi million pound company I work NMW for, use last 12 weeks worked to work out hol pay. They can't get it into their heads this does not apply to me, I do not work shifts or do ot, I work same days and hours every week, but manage my hours to suit needs of business. Mine is only few pounds at a time but it is still wrong and acas have said it is an unauthorised deduction. I am letting amount build up and will be submitting a grievance and I am looking for another job, ideally I will find a job first and take them straight to ET!!

DP is looking for another job and has been for months, he's had offers for daytime roles but nothing that pays what he is supposed to be earning here.

Were in a difficult position of having very high outgoings and whilst I pay the bills, food and day to day outgoings, we rely heavily on his wage for the rent and can't afford for him to be out of work until something better comes up.

@Flooffloof

I suspect the company is going under so they may as well try to find another job and hopefully not get caught up in the inevitable mess

They really aren't!

www.insider.co.uk/company-results-forecasts/bm-profits-shares-retail-discount-12619958

Definitely worth contacting his union. He can also contact ACAS - I know that their website says that underpaid wages should be rectified quickly and not wait for the next payday. Obviously the people affected need to understand payroll cutoff dates for claiming overtime.

GiantKitten

Great then they should pay the correct wages. No excuses.
There has to be some reason why there are doing this, I assumed going under.

Hocus, but if he’s not getting paid what he’s owed at this current job, maybe he’d be better off considering a slightly less paid but more reliable alternative role?

Just one of the many reviews on the company, citing the same problem that DP is having, except this is a completely different area