breach of contract?

wen-tom

Hi,
my workmate walked out today.. the boss will try to say that he is in breach of contract as he did not work any notice.

We are paid from 1st - end of month but paid on the 16th of the month after (eg. work 1st May - 31st May but paid on 16th June)..

My question is, can the boss refuse to pay the wages owed because he walked out?
Could the fact that we were offered no holidays for 5 months, are not offered breaks despite working a 10 - 12 hour day and not given the necessary break (11 hours) between shifts work in his favour?
he has also taken full holiday allowance that will be owed back in part?

Hope this makes sense and thanks in advance for any help.

Weirdlittleman

He cant withhold the wages although he can deduct overtaken holiday.
He could however seperate to the wages sue your colleague for damages due to the breach of contract for example if he had to hire a temp or turn down work due to it.

The other stuff you mention would be seperate from the wages but you would need to give more information on this.

Not allowing holidays isnt unless it means staff cant take their holidays for a year, the breaks. When you say not offered, are they given when people ask for them? i.e not declined not just proactively offered.

wen-tom

Hi, thanks for the quick response.

the boss is suggesting that he will not pay the wages owed from 1st may to today because no notice was worked? are you saying that he cant do this?

I understand that he could claim back the over taken holidays.

The breaks are not offered because there are no staff to cover the breaks. everyone in the company (except me) works 10 hour + days without any breaks at all because there would be no one to cover them.

We were just thinking that if the boss were to try to sue for breach of contract that the fact that we were not offered holidays or breaks etc even though it says on our contract that we are entitled to statuatory hols/breaks etc might be something we could fight back with...

wen-tom

jdturk wrote: »

Hope that answers some questions

JD Turk - thanks for your help.
when i was employed by the company - i asked about holidays. the boss said he would start the holiday year from then. before then, the existing staff had had no holidays offered although their contract said they were entitled to statuatory hols. It was only because i asked that a holiday year was "created" if you like and hols were offered from then.

Weirdlittleman

wen-tom wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the quick response.

the boss is suggesting that he will not pay the wages owed from 1st may to today because no notice was worked? are you saying that he cant do this?

I understand that he could claim back the over taken holidays.

The breaks are not offered because there are no staff to cover the breaks. everyone in the company (except me) works 10 hour + days without any breaks at all because there would be no one to cover them.

We were just thinking that if the boss were to try to sue for breach of contract that the fact that we were not offered holidays or breaks etc even though it says on our contract that we are entitled to statuatory hols/breaks etc might be something we could fight back with...

No he cant do it in this way but he could start a counter claim for damages.

When you say not offered do you mean you can't get them or do you mean the company arent proactive and force the staff to take them. In essence if you ask for the legal minimum break will they say no? or do they simply not come and tell you to take it.

Well not really as the law means you should have taken action to enforce the contract and minimise your loss, not use it as justification to walk out.

wen-tom

if/when breaks were requested we were told that its not possible as it would have meant getting another member of staff in to cover the break.

the boss is never there and breaks are never mentioned.
it wasnt the reason for the walk out.

Thanks for all your help so far

jak166

Hi,
my workmate walked out today.. the boss will try to say that he is in breach of contract as he did not work any notice. Why did he walk out?

We are paid from 1st - end of month but paid on the 16th of the month after (eg. work 1st May - 31st May but paid on 16th June).

My question is, can the boss refuse to pay the wages owed because he walked out? Depends on why he resigned.

Could the fact that we were offered no holidays for 5 months, are not offered breaks despite working a 10 - 12 hour day and not given the necessary break. Was this the actual reason though?

Working time regulations apply here. Could also be constructive unfair dismissal. A good site to check out for free is click legal advice.

Savvy_Sue

Weirdlittleman wrote: »

He cant withhold the wages although he can deduct overtaken holiday.

Actually, I'm not sure he can deduct the overtaken holiday without a clause in the contract allowing him to do so. *

But if there is such a clause, then the OP's colleague isn't likely to be getting much, if he's taken a full year's holiday in less than half the holiday year and only worked half of May.

When does your holiday year start?

* when I asked our payroll provider to deduct overtaken holiday from someone who was leaving, they specifically checked that I had such a clause in our contracts.

getmore4less

wen-tom wrote: »

JD Turk - thanks for your help.
when i was employed by the company - i asked about holidays. the boss said he would start the holiday year from then. before then, the existing staff had had no holidays offered although their contract said they were entitled to statuatory hols. It was only because i asked that a holiday year was "created" if you like and hols were offered from then.

Unless stated otherwise the statutory holiday year is your start date.

wen-tom

our holiday year started september 09. This was when I started at the company and so when i questioned holidays she began the holiday year. As I said, before that the only thing in our contract was that they were entitled to Stat hols. They were never told of the holiday year.

SandC

If you are paid in the middle of the month for a full month's work it usually means that you are being paid two weeks in advance and two weeks in arrears. So if you were leaving, to get a full month's pay you still need to work until the end of the month and not your pay day. Your June pay probably covers June work and not May.