I have just quit working for a mickey mouse little outfit based in Bradford and they are trying to not pay me my final wages. Anyone else had problems like this? If you have any good advice I’d appreciate it.
They are trying to say I have to pay for their agency staff as I only worked one weeks notice not four as it says in my contract. They verbally agreed to one weeks notice, I’d only been there a few months and was still in my probationary period so 4 weeks is a bit of a ■■■■■■■■■
Also they are trying to say I have to pay for damage to the rear door of one of their vehicles. Scraped it on a loading dock because the clip to hold it open was knackered and it swung shut. This happened months before I quit, nothing mentioned about it until now.
So all said and done they trying to say they aren’t paying me the grand they owe me, but I owe them £400.
Is any of what they are dong in any way legal?
I was PAYE employed so I’m thinking about taking them to tribunal for it.
Prawn:
They are trying to say I have to pay for their agency staff as I only worked one weeks notice not four as it says in my contract. They verbally agreed to one weeks notice, I’d only been there a few months and was still in my probationary period so 4 weeks is a bit of a ■■■■■■■■■
So all said and done they trying to say they aren’t paying me the grand they owe me, but I owe them £400.
Is any of what they are dong in any way legal?
I was PAYE employed so I’m thinking about taking them to tribunal for it.
Any help at all welcome, cheers.
They cannot withhold wages however they are correct in that they can sue you for costs arising from you not working your contracted notice period. Whilst most employers won’t bother some do and without something in writing confirming the one week you’re going to have basically no chance of proving it as they’re unlikely to say they did. If they do proceed with a claim they can only claim for the additional costs of the remainder of your notice or the period to takes them to find a replacement within the remaining notice period. In other words if they find an employee within a week they could only claim a week’s agency but if it takes them 5 weeks and you had 3 weeks of your notice period you’d not worked they could only claim three weeks. It is their responsibility to mitigate their costs as much as reasonably possible.
You can take them to a tribunal for the wages owed but to defend the claim for the costs of agency for the remainder of your notice period whilst they find a replacement employee you’ll need a solicitor.
You need to know what your contract says and anything you may have signed when you started.
If your contract says 4 weeks notice for either party then 4 weeks is what is required. So you should have got it in writing if they had agreed to just 1 weeks notice, verbally isn’t good enough as there is no evidence on an agreement just your word against theirs. As an employee you have to give the required notice, if they wish to give you notice they can do so and let you go earlier and put you on gardening leave but you cannot end your notice early AFAIK.
If you have signed anything or your contract states anything about damages again it may be legal it depends on what your contract or any paperwork you signed says about it if any.
Write to them, giving them seven days to pay up, if they don’t then do a Money Claim Online on them. Add £500 for your trouble. Unless you have signed a written contract stating differently, then one week’s notice will be considered adequate for a lorry driver to give.
Harry Monk:
Write to them, giving them seven days to pay up, if they don’t then do a Money Claim Online on them. Add £500 for your trouble. Unless you have signed a written contract stating differently, then one week’s notice will be considered adequate for a lorry driver to give.
He has already stated his contract says 4 weeks notice by either party. So by leaving after one week whether verbally agreed or not he has broken his contractual notice period.
I bet a pound to a dollar somewhere in your contact it states something about damage to company property and as for the 4 weeks notice you have broken the terms of your contract even if they verbally said you Could go after 1 week.
Although the letter states you were owed 4 days pay which isn’t a full week either so you haven’t even worked a full weeks notice by the looks of it at all as you said you did.
This clauses are pretty standard contract clauses so yes they can put those clauses in.
Your contract gives you and your employer rights that both have to abide by.
I very much doubt you would get anywhere with a tribunal as there is t rally anything they have done wrong.
You also wouldn’t get anywhere with a “money claim online” either.
I suggest you chalk it up to experience and learn from your mistakes and ensure you read your contract fully and anything else you sign before signing it.
Alternatively a Micky Mouse operation probably has Micky Mouse security. An unscrupulous person could very easily extract a grands worth of goods/diesel from them as means of recompense… #justsayinlike.
No you can’t. You signed a contract of employment giving them permission to make the stated deductions from your wages. You broke the contract, they exercised their rights contained within it which you signed you agreed to.
I would say that given the letter implies you can’t drive for crap and are one of those drivers who seem to see nothing wrong with bending motors and damaging loads that you’ve been let off numerous times in the past when they could’ve exercised the clause over damages but haven’t.
My advice to you and the others like you who seem incapable of driving a truck without bending it or damaging the load on a regular basis is to go find another field to work in because truck driving clearly isn’t for you.
I would say that given the letter implies you can’t drive for crap and are one of those drivers who seem to see nothing wrong with bending motors and damaging loads that you’ve been let off numerous times in the past when they could’ve exercised the clause over damages but haven’t.
My advice to you and the others like you who seem incapable of driving a truck without bending it or damaging the load on a regular basis is to go find another field to work in because truck driving clearly isn’t for you.
The OP said that the trailer door was damaged because the retaining clip was defective. And let’s face it, any company which runs trucks whose registration numbers begin with YE06 are likely to be running a crock of crap. I’m sure we’ve all known companies like it.
Interesting to see too that the company are claiming that their agency charges are £970 for a three week period. Obviously this isn’t the driver’s wage, because this wouldn’t be an extra cost, but the agency charge for supplying the driver. So £323.33 a week. I had no idea agency charges were so high.
Harry Monk:
Interesting to see too that the company are claiming that their agency charges are £970 for a three week period. Obviously this isn’t the driver’s wage, because this wouldn’t be an extra cost, but the agency charge for supplying the driver. So £323.33 a week. I had no idea agency charges were so high.
My girlfriend now works at a college and the agency add between 15% and 35% of the hourly rate for all hours worked depending on the role for their fee
Harry Monk:
Interesting to see too that the company are claiming that their agency charges are £970 for a three week period. Obviously this isn’t the driver’s wage, because this wouldn’t be an extra cost, but the agency charge for supplying the driver. So £323.33 a week. I had no idea agency charges were so high.
Maybe it’s a straight temp-perm deal with the same driver being the one starting full time on the 29th? Possibly a driver already known to them via agency?
Found this giving the legal side of things, as said above, if it’s in your signed contract then you’ve already agreed to the deductions.
Only Q I have is regarding the damage, did the process follow their investigation and disciplinary policy? Incident report? Acceptance of blame (and also liability as stated in your contract)?
And some people wonder why at some places drivers will defect and VOR anything and everything, better to insist on a catch that costs a couple of quid to be replaced than face a bill for hundreds of pounds due to it being missing or damaged.
Harry Monk:
Interesting to see too that the company are claiming that their agency charges are £970 for a three week period. Obviously this isn’t the driver’s wage, because this wouldn’t be an extra cost, but the agency charge for supplying the driver. So £323.33 a week. I had no idea agency charges were so high.
Maybe it’s a straight temp-perm deal with the same driver being the one starting full time on the 29th? Possibly a driver already known to them via agency?
Found this giving the legal side of things, as said above, if it’s in your signed contract then you’ve already agreed to the deductions.
Only Q I have is regarding the damage, did the process follow their investigation and disciplinary policy? Incident report? Acceptance of blame (and also liability as stated in your contract)?
And some people wonder why at some places drivers will defect and VOR anything and everything, better to insist on a catch that costs a couple of quid to be replaced than face a bill for hundreds of pounds due to it being missing or damaged.
Or better yet walk away from the job. I wouldn’t sign that and have walked away from 2 agencies because of that.
To be clear I don’t try and damage anything but if I wanted the risks of running a truck I would buy one and have the rewards as well
One of the reason Eastern European drivers came to UK use to be that in UK employers sort of - kind of… always paid the salary.
But now… UK employers are pretty much at the same level of Eastern European employers, so many of them have started to make up unfair contracts and avoid paying salary… and I’m saying this from my own experience… and from experience of people who I know…
There seems to be huge amount of companies in UK not paying up, and not only agencies… even the big firms…
the fact that UK historically have no sick pay and other employment laws make employees less protected than in Eastern European countries…
UK is slowly becoming one of the worst places to be employee in Europe… some of the Eastern European countries are even overtaking UK now…
And - YES, if you will go to court you will loose - I know people who have tried this. The only option is expensive solicitor on your side + recorded interview conversation + photographic evidence of the first contract version + footage from while working - driving for them + tacho records
Harry Monk:
Interesting to see too that the company are claiming that their agency charges are £970 for a three week period. Obviously this isn’t the driver’s wage, because this wouldn’t be an extra cost, but the agency charge for supplying the driver. So £323.33 a week. I had no idea agency charges were so high.
My girlfriend now works at a college and the agency add between 15% and 35% of the hourly rate for all hours worked depending on the role for their fee
Ok, let’s see:
They claim the agency charges amounted to 970 for a 3 week period (15 days of work) = 64.66/day in agency fees
OP’s salary for 4 days is 388.40 for 4 days of work = 97.1/day, company’s claim implies that an agency worker costs them 64.66 + 97.10 = 161.76 PER DAY. If I understand correctly, the 970 they quote as agency fees can only be claimed if they’re in excess of what a regular employee (the OP) would’ve cost them
Any sum (in excess of the sum that was due to the employee) payable to a temporary worker hired to carry out the duties the employee would have carried out
So they’re either paying the agency guy 64.66/day in which case they shouldn’t be able to claim losses (as 64 < 97) or they’re paying 161 per day for agency driver salary + agency fees, or ~60% more than what they would pay a regular driver of theirs which doesn’t seem very reasonable.
Op, did you hit the door (the vehicle door…) before you told them you’re leaving or after?
simcor:
You need to know what your contract says and anything you may have signed when you started.
If your contract says 4 weeks notice for either party then 4 weeks is what is required. So you should have got it in writing if they had agreed to just 1 weeks notice, verbally isn’t good enough as there is no evidence on an agreement just your word against theirs. As an employee you have to give the required notice, if they wish to give you notice they can do so and let you go earlier and put you on gardening leave but you cannot end your notice early AFAIK.
If you have signed anything or your contract states anything about damages again it may be legal it depends on what your contract or any paperwork you signed says about it if any.
Verbally is good enough, if he is telling the truth.
There will be a different profile of evidence available between an employer frantically calling on the Monday to find out why the employee is missing (which you would expect if they had expected him to work 4 weeks notice), and something else like contacting an agency on the Friday before.
Unless the wagon was shown to have sat idle on the Monday morning while they found out where the hell he was, then I’d suggest that is circumstantial evidence to support the assertion that they didn’t expect him to work beyond the verbally agreed week.
As for the damage to the doors, that too would require evidence that he was notified of a deduction and that the employer was treating is as a disciplinary matter. If he can show the damage arose from defective equipment which caused the risk, then the resulting damage probably cannot be deducted (unless he compounded the problem by doing something totally foolish and beyond what a person would reasonably do to try and get the job done with the defect present).
simcor:
You need to know what your contract says and anything you may have signed when you started.
If your contract says 4 weeks notice for either party then 4 weeks is what is required. So you should have got it in writing if they had agreed to just 1 weeks notice, verbally isn’t good enough as there is no evidence on an agreement just your word against theirs. As an employee you have to give the required notice, if they wish to give you notice they can do so and let you go earlier and put you on gardening leave but you cannot end your notice early AFAIK.
If you have signed anything or your contract states anything about damages again it may be legal it depends on what your contract or any paperwork you signed says about it if any.
Verbally is good enough, if he is telling the truth.
There will be a different profile of evidence available between an employer frantically calling on the Monday to find out why the employee is missing (which you would expect if they had expected him to work 4 weeks notice), and something else like contacting an agency on the Friday before.
Unless the wagon was shown to have sat idle on the Monday morning while they found out where the hell he was, then I’d suggest that is circumstantial evidence to support the assertion that they didn’t expect him to work beyond the verbally agreed week.
As for the damage to the doors, that too would require evidence that he was notified of a deduction and that the employer was treating is as a disciplinary matter. If he can show the damage arose from defective equipment which caused the risk, then the resulting damage probably cannot be deducted (unless he compounded the problem by doing something totally foolish and beyond what a person would reasonably do to try and get the job done with the defect present).
They’re saying “We refer to your letter of resignation advising termination of your employment giving only 1 week’s notice” and then they say they had to pay £970 to the agency “for the 3 week period commencing 8 October”
Also, 2.4.3: “Loss or damage…up to the value of the insurance excess” where the value is unspecified. Most agencies have it set at £500 so to ask for £700+vat is uhm…and how can he be certain the door had to be replaced (with a brand new one at that) and not repaired? I mean if they know/knew they’d be passing the costs onto someone else they have no incentive to look for a less expensive option.
Even their math is strange: they’re saying he incurred costs to them (£970+700 = £1670) and admit to owing him £881.40 in wages then they say the balance is £396.77 in their favor buuuuuut 1670 - 881.40 = 788.60 which would be even worse for OP
some of the Eastern European countries are even overtaking UK now… 