IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere ·
09/09/2018 16:51
My daughter is in her 20's. She has been working with a zero hours contract but at the beginning of the summer she was offered a 6 week internship overseas which she jumped at. When she came back she was offered a very different sort of job that she thought could lead to qualifications and decent career prospects on the basis of a 4 week trial (two shifts a week). There was no mention of pay but she assumed it would be minimum wage.
At the end of the 4 weeks she was told that she would be employed as an apprentice with apprentice wages for 16 hours per week.
She did 2 shifts on this basis but when we looked into apprenticeships it was apparent that this was not acceptable - only in exceptional circumstances (such as disability) could you work those hours. Otherwise an apprenticeship should be for a minimum of 30 hours per week.
She spoke to the business owner and said she would no longer be working there. He was disappointed but there was no contract, no agreement and she walked away. He made no mention of paying her either for the two shifts she had done as an apprentice or the eight shifts she had done previously.
So since the beginning of August she worked a total of 80 hours for the business under the reasonable expectation in the first four weeks that she would be paid minimum wage. She was embarrassed to raise the question of wages but assumed that the business owner was honourable and would be paying her at the end of the month which, of course, he didn't. And, to add insult to injury, the job is now being advertised on job sites at minimum wage!
I appreciate that money should have been discussed from the start but she assumed that she would be receiving minimum wage. She was asked to work, she didn't approach the business looking for "experience". Can it be right that someone can offer employment but expect you to work for 64 hours on a trial basis?
Is there any legislation that covers a situation such as this?