UNFAIR pay : whose responsible

kat15388

:eek: I originaly posted this in another forum for finance advice but some points may be relevant here. Who should be held responsible LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
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I wonder if anyone can give me advice to pass to my work colleague. She began working in the shop over christmas as a christmas temp and then stayed on afterward. In the company I work for we are payed monthly. However, the large christmas bonus which she was to received, as well as weeks and weeks of pay were not payed as a certain senior member of staff did not send the adequate forms on time. Then, the person these forms were sent to left them in his in tray for weeks and weeks ignoring them. Due to this lack of organisation my friend, who has two jobs, was not payed the hundreds of pounds she was owed, in fact she was payed only about £20 and this was her bonus after tax. As you can imagine what followed was the bouncing of direct debits and as a consequence she was charged by her bank. Despite informing them of her situation they were not, unsurprisingly, sympathetic to her plight. In Feb the amount she was payed only just payed off these charges, and now she faces new ones, it is a snowballing situation as she was unable to pay the next lot of debits. The bank are now threatening to cancel her cheque books, debit cards and overdraft facilities all because some dummy couldnt do his job. Despite the company denying responsibility they later had to as it was proven to be the fault of this senior manager who said he would 'pay out of his own pocket', but mysteriously when she is about to meet up with him at work 'something comes up'.The longer this has gone on the more serious consequences this has had, she has no savings left, if she had any,she couldn't even pay her rent this month and yet he keeps fobbing her off. Surely there must be something she can do; i've suggested following the claims strategy with regards to bank charges but all the companies involved seem to be passing the blame so i dont know how well it would work!Her charges have now just passed the £300 mark. Any suggestions?
So what do you think, should she hold work responsible, i think she should its another example, in my opinion, of the 'dont make a fuss' employees being fobbed off when something serious happens. I sit just me or are ll employers willing to take and get you to so favours for them bt when you want something back or they make a mistake it's ignored.

TrikerAndBiker

I would suggest that your friend contacts the Payroll or HR manager at the company's Head Office and explain the situation to them. Did she get confirmation in writing that she would receive a bonus or was it just word of mouth? Armed with the former and proof that she was eligible for the bonus I would contact ACAS for advice. With the latter the company could deny all knowledge of bonuses.

As for redress for the charges your friend has had an awful lot would depend on whether the bonus was guaranteed or not. If it was then it would be worthwhile her contacting Payroll/HR about this although she will need to prove that it was the non-payment of the bonus that caused the charges. I believe that the company is not obliged to make any redress for this (although I stand corrected if I am wrong) but they may prove to be understanding.