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Very OT - salary dispute
02GF74 - 29/1/18 at 06:27 PM

I doubt anybody is likely to help here but I'll ask all the same.

I started work at a company on 22 Feb 2016 and left on 1 Jan 2018. It appears to me that the company is owing me pay.

I'm at a slight disadvantage as I do not have all my payslips.

When I started in Feb 2016, the initial monthly salary runs where from 1st of the month to the last day of the month. At some point 2016, this was changed to be from 6th of the month to 5th of the following month.

Therefore there is a period from last day of the month until 6th of the month (5 days) where I was not paid.

The contract signed by the boss and myself state the salary per annum.

Firstly is a company allowed to change the payment runs like this? I was not informed that this had occurred although it was printed on the payslips. It does not appear that I was paid for the "missing" days.

The way the month salary is calculated is annual salary / 12 * number of working days worked. Working days are Mon - Fri.

It looks to me by shifting the monthly payment period, and depending on where the working days fall, the company ends up paying me less than the annual salary.


The amount in dispute is 1 day, not a huge amount but the person I'm dealing with is being such an complete arsehole that I want to go as far as possible to make them pay me what they owe me , I was nearly always the first in the office, and sometimes the last to leave so the company have lots of hours of unpaid work from me, none of which I had to do.


Any advice appreciated.


snapper - 29/1/18 at 07:00 PM

Annualised salary is calculated over the whole year, that is 365 days. The pay is distributed on a monthly basis therefore pay is 1/12 per Calander month.
To calculate your due payments is therefore tricky as months are 28/9, 30 or 31 days but you get 1/12th of annual salary.
A simple calculation would be to divide your annual salary by 365 and calculate if you are 5 days short of that figure.
There are annual leave entitlements to add into the mix, if you have taken more leave than the leave entitlement as a proportion of the year you owe them, if less they owe you.


snapper - 29/1/18 at 07:09 PM

Just to add, if the pay date was changed then there should have been an extra amount of pay equaling the extended month and then every month thereafter reverts to the normal 1/12 of annual
The argument for a days pay as a value in itself is always difficult but if you calculate days as 1/365 of annual then weekends are included


gremlin1234 - 29/1/18 at 07:34 PM

what will be confusing is that mon 1st jan, the day you nominally left, was a bank holiday. so you would have to find if they are working days.


02GF74 - 29/1/18 at 08:26 PM

No.

Monday to Friday are classed as working days. I get paid for bank holidays.


Irony - 29/1/18 at 10:39 PM

An employer must give you bank holidays off but it's their choice to pay you or to remove it from your holiday allowance. Could this be the source of the missing day.


02GF74 - 29/1/18 at 10:48 PM

No. All holidays are paid, whether personal or national I. E. bank holidays.

I believe that he is being arse as I left at a bad time for them, thus puts meeting a critical deadline at risk.


Mr Whippy - 30/1/18 at 06:54 AM

quote:
Originally posted by 02GF74
No. All holidays are paid, whether personal or national I. E. bank holidays.

I believe that he is being arse as I left at a bad time for them, thus puts meeting a critical deadline at risk.


It sounds like you left on bad terms (hey done that myself) sadly I'd say you have zero chance of recovering any money unless you took them to court. They may legally be obliged to give you payslips but I wouldn't count on it. Did you use up all your holiday entitlement? as they may use that to reduce your owed amount. I use to work for a terrible company run by a total arse who got great enjoyment in screwing over leaving employees, it took great care to screw him over. Try and move on and if your not back in work now, good luck


Theshed - 30/1/18 at 08:49 AM

Disputes about the last instalment of wages are incredibly common. Enforcement is very straightforward. Step 1 is to contact ACAS under the early conciliation process. You do that by filling out a form online. ACAS will first contact you and ask if you want to conciliate. If you say yes they then contact the employer and ask them the same question. If either of you says no ACAS issues a certificate saying that conciliation is complete. You cannot go to an employment tribunal unless you do this. Many many disputes are resolved at this stage.

If you are up for it, Step 2 is to bring a claim in the Employment Tribunal. It is easy. Once again there is a (longer) online form. You should indicate that your claim is for arrears of pay. These can be claimed as "unlawful deductions from wages" under Part II of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or as a breach of contract. If you are owed holiday pay you need to say so. There is no longer a fee for bringing such a claim. There are very strict time limits. In short you must present your claim within 3 months of leaving. In your case the time limit runs out on 31 March 2018 BUT you can add on any period spent conciliating with ACAS - that stops the clock. A further extension applies if the conciliation period ends after 31 March 2018. Unless you contact ACAS before 31 March 2018 you will not be able to pursue this in the ET but could bring a breach of contract claim in the county court.

Tribunals are reasonably user friendly. The irony is that to bring this claim you would need to take a day off work....costs are not recoverable as a rule. In other words unless this is a matter of principle it will not be cost effective. That said I have dealt with a guy who doggedly presented a claim for two "trial shifts" scraping grease of a bakery floor who was then told he was not needed. He got a judgment!

In most regions the ET will list a hearing for 1 or 2 hours before even waiting for a defence to be filed. The papers go out to the employer with a family robust warning that wages need to be properly calculated. If they defend then you will need to attend the hearing. You will need to prove your case by reference to what you were paid and what you should have been paid.

Snapper is correct that for an employee paid a salary it accrues day to day unless the contract says otherwise. In other words you ignore the distinction between working and non working days.

It seems to me that the change in pay day is not determinative of what you were entitled to be paid. Often an employer will pay 1/12 of salary each month. Only the first and last months are pro rata. It is not possible from what you have said to see whether you are right or not. You may be but it is hard to say. Do you have a payslip for the month when things changed?

You should be able to get all of your pay slips by making a subject accessible request under the Data Protection Act - the employer may charge up to £10 for this. It is a real hassle for them. I would imagine that if you contacted ACAS and made a data protection request then at least you will get an explanation of your pay and more likely they would pay up!

I suspect you realise that this dispute is unlikely to improve any reference. ET judgments are now searchable on-line. Taking things to ACAS and making Data protection requests are private.

I hope this helps...


nick205 - 30/1/18 at 09:26 AM

02GF74

Not an ideal situation for you I'm sure.

I can't advise on what process to follow, but others already have by the look of it.

With regards to employers changing pay runs SWMBO used to work for Reed Learning (part of Reed Employment). For years they paid monthly (12x / year), but then changed to paying in 4 weekly periods (13x / year). With peoples lives worked around monthly outgoings it caused some issues, but they went ahead and did it. Before making the change they wrote to all employees setting out the change being made and dates of the change. Reed Learning are not a small company and would certainly have been working within legal constraints. In summary I'm sure employers are allowed to make such changes, but there is probably a process they have to follow - i.e. notifying employees in good time so employees can make necessary changes to their financial arrangements.

I do hope you get the situation resolved amicably!


jossey - 30/1/18 at 11:02 AM

Use your p60 to calculate if its right. If its short then goto small claims but take evidence.


02GF74 - 30/1/18 at 07:17 PM

well I didn't expect so many responses - thanks to all, must be a common occurrence.

I don't believe I left on bad terms. I got fed up of the commute and asked for the possibility of working from home two days a week; company had VPN and all employees have at some point worked from home. The boss I asked, for sake of argument let's call him Steve, gave reasons that were just nonsense. "This is an office job" -- well no, with VPN we can do the work from any part of the world. "You need to work closely with Oliver" - well no, me and Oliver worked on separate items and maybe needed to be in the office 2 or 3 times in 16 months, even then most issues could have been resolved via mail.

He would nearly always work from home on Friday's and was often the blocker by not being in the office when it came to some meetings. Privileges of the boss I guess.

I am pretty sure he was aware I was looking for a new job as all of a sudden my phone was ringing as agencies kept calling me, prior to that I never got phone calls plus I happened to be at this desk when the other boss was using Messenger and saw from the corner of my eye a mention of the phone calls as whether I was looking for a new job!

Ironically it would have cost the company nothing to implement, in fact the company could save loads of money by not having the shitty office but hire a meeting room one day a week.

It took me a long while to find a new job, mainly because I was not willing to relocate and commuting into London was out and most likely because of my age.

We were a small company and on the surface both Nik and Steve, the bosses, seemed like good blokes but I could see there was an undercurrent of nastiness inside Steve, which has come to the surface by my recent communications with him. I guess this has got my back up so I will pursue this until it either starts to get expensive or is taking too much time or burst a blood vessel as I am seething all the time.


Angel Acevedo - 31/1/18 at 12:03 AM

Here in Mexico Labor Law used to be very Employee friendly.
In a case like yours I could have been 3 years unempoyed anc collected "salarios Caidos" which would be a payment for the time the trial went on...
That in itself was an incentive to sue...
Back in 2000 i quit a company and they owed me one 15 day payment, Holidays and Christmas bonus.
After a few visits to the office receiving "come back Later´s"
I decided top call it quits...
I decided my mental health was worth more than the time dealing with those pr1cks...


Mr Whippy - 31/1/18 at 07:31 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Angel Acevedo

After a few visits to the office receiving "come back Later´s"
I decided top call it quits...
I decided my mental health was worth more than the time dealing with those pr1cks...


^ totally agree, ok money is always handy but sometimes its better to just move on say feck it, put it down to experience and get on you your life. You've got a new job so I'd personally just move on especially if it's making you - "burst a blood vessel as I am seething all the time."

[Edited on 31/1/18 by Mr Whippy]


02GF74 - 31/1/18 at 07:32 PM

well I just can't let go of this.

I will be making a Subject access request under the Data Protection Act 1998, for the following.

If you can think of anything else that is relevant to me and involves much time for no benefit then let me know.

To hell with the £ 10 fee!

1. First and last date of employment by xxx company
2. A copy of the Terms and conditions of Employment
3. Details of annual performance and salary reviews, if any, to show dates and outcome
4. Details of disciplinary proceedings against me, if any, to show, date, reason and outcome
5. Holiday entitlement for years 2016, 2017 and 2018
6. List of the dates for holidays approved by the company taken by me in 2016, 2017 and 2018
7. List of the dates for holidays not taken by me, if any, in 2016, 2017 and 2018
8. List of any days taken as unpaid leave by me, if any, in 2016, 2017 and 2018
9. Copies of p60 for tax years: 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18
10. Copy of p45
11. Copies of all payslips during my time of employment with xx company, dates as in 1. above.
12. For each payslip, a breakdown of the salary calculation, to show the following
* Payslip pay period (start and end date)
* Number of days in the payslip pay period that I am contracted to be paid for (total includes workdays (Mon-Fri), holidays and national holidays)
* Number of days in the payslip pay period that qualify for payment
* Gross amount that is subject to tax
* Tax free allowance
* Amount of tax paid at the basic rate (20.0%)
* Amount of tax paid at the higher rate (40.0%)
* Amount of National Insurance contribution
* Amount of pension payment
* Net salary


Angel Acevedo - 31/1/18 at 07:48 PM


That will wee them off...
Keep us posted then...
To have a laugh...
Best of luck...


02GF74 - 31/1/18 at 08:14 PM

Well it serves two purposes.

When I asked for copies of my payslips I was told that the accountants will charge, I'm sure it will be more than £10.

Secondly the salary breakdown should take a while but I will be able to use it to sanity check my calculations should it go to court.


Mr Whippy - 1/2/18 at 07:34 AM

I have a nagging doubt you've made a mistake in your calcs tbh, I've ran into this before with DIY pay calculating to the point of speaking to the finance manager who explained my thinking was totally flawed and not how pay was managed, the mistake was indeed all mine. Pity cos I thought I was due a lot of money This being with the company I'm currently with.

Considering that it sounds like all employees would have been affected by the alteration to their pay methods, including those in finance... Does it not seem unlikely you are the only one who has noticed this? You may be chasing ghosts.

Once you have your data above, I think I would take it to an accountant who can give you a correct assessment of whether any mistakes have actually been made, my money is on your interpretation being incorrect.


02GF74 - 1/2/18 at 06:48 PM

You doubt my ability to do school boy maths??

When the payment period shifted from 1st-last days in month to 6th-5th, there should have been one month where gross payment, and subsequently nett pay was more to cover the skipped 5 days. There was not.

As for other employees, what other employees?

I was lone employee for about 4 months. The 2 other staff may have joined when the 6-5 period was in play or just not noticed or cared.

But as you say, it will all soon become clear.


TRX - 5/2/18 at 02:45 PM

> I do not have all my payslips.

Do you get a check or do they wire it to your bank? Either way, your bank might be able to help.