Other claims for wages and holiday pay.
Deductions, Payslips, Breach of contract
5. Deduction from Wages Claim
Deductions includes non- payment. Not paying you for 2 hours worked is normally an unlawful deduction. But there are a few occasions when an employer is allowed to make deductions from pay. These include previous overpayments, written consent to the deduction, or expenses. These do not apply to NMW claims.
Deduction from wages claimed are useful when you should have been paid more than the NMW. It is common to make claims as both NMW claims and for Deductions
6. Failure to provide itemised pay slips
The employer has to provide written payslips, for each payment, showing the pay rate, the hours or time worked, all deductions (e.g. tax, National Insurance, pension) and how much was actually paid. It must be possible to calculate your gross pay (the total pay you earned before any deductions) and your net pay (the money you actually received after all deductions: the usual deductions are tax, National Insurance and pensions
There is no specific remedy, but the Tribunal can award any amount it finds should have been paid. It is worth claiming simply to emphasise to the Tribunal how poor and unreliable the employer’s payment system was.
7. Breach of Contract
Not paying you for work done is also a breach of your contract of employment; and under your contract, you have to be paid at least National Minimum Wage. (You have a contract even if you have never seen it or signed it; even if nothing was ever written down, just word of mouth.) So you can claim Breach of Contract if not paid the NMW; but claiming a Breach of Contract adds little to the claim for unlawful deduction of wages, and it carries the danger of a Counter Claim: see the Warning below.
Notice Pay and Breach of Contract
Under your contract you are normally entitled to a period of notice before your contract ends. The minimum period, after 4 weeks of employment, is one week. This increases by a week for each year of employment: so, after 3 years of employment, you are entitled to 3 weeks’ notice; and so on, up to a maximum of 12 weeks.
This can be worth claiming. If you were not told in advance of your dismissal – that is, given a period of notice – a warning of the termination of your employment – you can claim Breach of Contract for loss of pay during the Notice Period. You are entitled to what you would have earned if you had been given proper notice: so a week’s net pay, or 3 weeks, or whatever the correct period is for your service. Some written contracts may give you longer notice periods; and there is an argument that monthly paid employees are due a month’s notice, at least.
A claim for Notice Pay for short service employees may not be worth much, if anything; but if, for example, you worked for 4 years, and then were finished without notice, it could be worth 4 weeks pay. However, the amount due will be reduced by earnings from any new employment you got in the notice period; so if you move straight to a new job, it may not be worth claiming.
Lastly, claims for breach of contract are restricted to employees: people who worked under a contract of employment. See below for a discussion of the difference between “employees” and :workers”.
Warning: The Risk of making a Contract Claim
However, there is a risk to making a claim for Breach of Contract, which doesn’t apply to the other claims. Breach of Contract is the only situation where an employer can make a claim against an employee at the Tribunal: a Counter Claim – against you! This is rarely done, and where a Counter Claim is made, it rarely succeeds; but it can be worrying for you.
The employer may make a wild Counter Claim – that you stole £800 and you must repay him; or that you damaged goods, or the company van; or were rude to a customer and so lost a valuable contract. If you think the employer might bring such a claim, (for example, where there are complaints against you), then it may be better not to include the Breach of Contract Claim at all: it is not essential for the Wages or Holiday Pay claims. The only claim it is essential for is Notice Pay, and that is often only for a week’s pay or two at most, depending on your length of service.
Don’t worry too much about the legal technicalities in the 7 Claims set out above. In most cases, all you have to do is name the Claim you are making on the Tribunal Claim Form. The Tribunal will know the law to apply. What is much more important is for you to set out as clearly as you can how much you are claiming.
Don’t wait any longer, start gathering your evidence now
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