Minimum wage advice please!!

PasturesNew

Piece rate: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/TheNationalMinimumWage/DG_175097

‘Fair’ piece rates

There are special rules for working out a ‘fair’ piece rate. Your employer must find out how many pieces or tasks an average worker can complete in an hour. The ‘fair’ piece rate is 1.2 times the rate which lets a worker of average speed earn the NMW in an hour. This gives workers whose speed may be a bit below average (eg because they just started) the chance to earn the NMW anyway.

lindseydaniel

Found this on the directgov website. Apparently if you are self-employed then you are not entitled to minimum wage.



Who is a worker for NMW purposes?

Pay and Work Rights Helpline

For confidential help and advice on the NMW call 0800 917 2368

• Pay and Work Rights Helpline

If you have an employment contract you are an employee and therefore a worker for the purpose of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) rules.
If you don’t have an employment contract, you could still be a worker and entitled to receive the NMW if you do work personally for someone else (under a worker’s contract, such as a contract to perform services personally). If you are genuinely self-employed you are not entitled to receive the NMW.

paulwf

lindseydaniel you can still be self employed and classed as a worker...OP please don't think that having self employed operatives will make you exempt from paying NMW. You would need to get clarification in writing from HMRC before going down that route.

NMW genuinely doesn't apply if you are self employed and you set your own pay rates, i.e. you let a company know what your pay rate is (that they can agree or negotiate) then you invoice them when the work is done. Where the individual sets the pay rate it is of course up to them to suggest a sensible rate so they are satisfied with what they earn. This isn't the case here, the OP is setting the pay rate not the leaflet distributors.