15 min early + late/ Holding 1 Week wages.

Fawkes_November

Hello,

I was wondering if any one could help me, I'm a 21 year old Canadian citizen studying in the UK. I got a part-time job in retail since I'm not studying full-time and could easily cope with about 20 hours a week. It's my first job in the UK and I'm surprised by a lot of "rules" and I'm wondering if any one can enlighten me if this is common practise or did I just find a really bad company to work for?

My first question is regarding the way I'm paid, I'm on a 4 weekly payroll (which by the way, I've never had to wait so long to be paid for in my life) but the problem is, my job is keeping my first weeks wages, so my first paycheck I will only be paid for 2 weeks instead of 4 even thou I worked 4 weeks.

For example, say I started working on the 1st of January, they are keeping the money that I worked for from the 1st until the 7th and then I only get paid on the 28th but they are only paying me until the 21st as that seems to be the cut off date or something? So okay I understand that they have a cut off date of a week, the company has probably over 1000 employees so I can understand if they give themselves a week in case of errors, but why on earth are they holding the 1st week I worked for until I leave the job?


My second question is, my manager wants me to be there 15 minutes early and expects me to work an extra 5-10 minutes every day at closing time, generally tiding the store, sometimes I have to wait for him 30 minutes while he counts the tills. Is this standard practise? I'm not a salaried worker, I'm paid by the hour so I'd imagine you should be paid whenever you're on the clock.

The only reason I ask is because the first one is absolutely illegal in Canada and the US and the second one the same, in fact, in the US, the department of labour would literally bend the company over if they got caught doing something like that. I always heard that Europe had great civil right laws and specially countries like France where workers are treated really well, is it all just a myth or did I just get hired by a really nasty company?

If any one cares it's Maplin Electronics.

Thanks, and sorry if I sound ungrateful but I am really angry at this, there's 11 people in the store and they are essentially taking 30 minutes from everyone's time, that's a lot of money, and holding first weeks wages from a thousand employees can easily convert to half a million dollars sitting in their bank account collecting interest...

tripled

With regards to the time keeping, they might not be able to inist on that legally per se, but they can get rid of you without any reason in your first two years, so there's not really mch you can do. The only exception might be if it drags your hourly rate down below minimum wage that there might be something, but if you complained you'd probably soon be gone, so sadly I doubt there is much you can do on this front.

With regards to the wages, hopefully someone else who works for Maplin can shed some light on this, but it sounds to me like it's a misunderstandingand it's been double counted. You are paid every four weeks in arrears, so you would be paid from the 1st to the 21st and recieve those wages on the 28th so should get three weeks not two. However they will effectively always owe you a week until you leave due to the weeks delay before being paid for the previous four weeks. I could be wrong though.

sniggings

Not sure on the wages, I guess that will be correct as messing up those can lead to trouble, think you may just have misunderstood.

As for starting and finishing late, no way would I do that, but as above, until you work there for 2 years (thanks Tories) you can be finished for almost any reason.

But in my experience, if you stick up for yourself you tend to get treated better, so if this were me, I would not be accepting those conditions and if they didn't like that, I would move on, and they can spend the time training and interviewing some other mug.

RobLondon1984

If you work 4 weeks, you should get paid for 3 weeks, as they need time to process your payslip.

It does sound unusual for a company to only pay you 2 weeks, and not pay you for the 1st week. I assume the company will pay you the 1st week when you leave the company.

As for not getting paid for working early and leaving late, that is pretty standard of most minimum wage jobs. I have worked in retail, and this happens often and sometimes I won't get paid for doing 30 minutes overtime.

What's your hourly rate? Anything above £7 is pretty good for a student.

Fawkes_November

The wages is correct as I received my payslip today and I questioned every one there including managers about it and they said yeah that's how it works and every one else has done it. My girlfriend is also canadian and she was shocked as well.

They keep your first week wages, I started working on the 17th of September, that first week I'm not being paid until I leave the company, so I'm being paid between the 17th of September and the 12th of October on the 19th of October. 1 week they are holding and the 12-19 week is past the cut off date so I will only be paid for that in November.
I'm shocked because in this day and age with super fast computers and instant banking that seems like something they used to do in the Victorian days when everything was pen and paper.


The 15 minutes thing I understand, to be honest, in Canada and the US you could get fired too but then you could claim compensation and they wouldn't have any chance of firing you if you're in a union any way, and it's quite common for retail/low level jobs to have unions. I won't say anything as I know I could basically be let go but I will try and encourage some of the older staff who are also unhappy to say something as in fact, they have been getting ripped off much longer than I have.

I'l probably just look for a new job to be honest, maybe it's the french in me but I'm not the kind of person who can just hold something like this in.


Edit: @RobLondon, yes that is what they are doing, is it common practise in this country to hold you first weeks pay? If it is I can't believe UK citizens are okay with a privaty equity firm essentially "borrowing" hundreds of thousands of dollars interest free from their employees. I think "We will pay you when you leave the company" sounds like a poor excuse. I didn't think Europe would be this backwards.

I'm only paid NMW, as far as what I've been told by other unhappy colleagues, pretty much everyone else is on the same boat.

bluenoseam

It's not uncommon to be asked to tidy the store, as for coming in 15 minutes early I would expect pretty much anyone to be in minimum 5-10 minutes before their shift starts anyway! I think you're under some sort of illusion that you're hard done by, nah, not really, it's what's expected and if you won't do it, don't worry, there's plenty of people out there who will do it, which no doubt your manager knows. Sorry to lay it on you, but in this environment I wouldn't go stirring up trouble as it's likely to end very badly for you.

sniggings

they are not so much keeping your first week until you leave but until the next pay day, so a month at most, so every month you get the weeks pay back then they keep a week out of that months pay, until the following month and so on...

sniggings

bluenoseam wrote: »

It's not uncommon to be asked to tidy the store, as for coming in 15 minutes early I would expect pretty much anyone to be in minimum 5-10 minutes before their shift starts anyway! I think you're under some sort of illusion that you're hard done by, nah, not really, it's what's expected and if you won't do it, don't worry, there's plenty of people out there who will do it, which no doubt your manager knows. Sorry to lay it on you, but in this environment I wouldn't go stirring up trouble as it's likely to end very badly for you.

yeah getting fired from a job that pays around min wage and expects nearly an hour free labour each day, yeah OP don't rock that cruise ship you're on :rotfl:

DCFC79

Being asked to be there 15 minutes before the start of your shift is so A your on time and B you have that time to get yourself ready, go to the toilet etc rather than start at say 9 and 10 mins later you have to go to the toilet, are you expected to start work 15 minutes early or just be in the store 15 minutes early ?. The finishing late thing is to tidy the store etc.

gem75

DCFC79 wrote: »

Being asked to be there 15 minutes before the start of your shift is so A your on time and B you have that time to get yourself ready, go to the toilet etc rather than start at say 9 and 10 mins later you have to go to the toilet, are you expected to start work 15 minutes early or just be in the store 15 minutes early ?. The finishing late thing is to tidy the store etc.

So long as you are on the shop floor for the start of your shift, it shouldn't matter whether you arrive there 30 mins early or 2 mins early, that should be up to the individual to plan how long it takes them to get sorted so they are ready to work at the right time. As for working unpaid at the end of the day to tidy the store, this is still work so should be paid for. Disgusting the way some of these companies treat their staff. If you are only being paid national minimum wage, working this extra time every day will take you below that so you could report them. Give these people a call for some advice http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/DG_177940

shortcrust

bluenoseam wrote: »

It's not uncommon to be asked to tidy the store, as for coming in 15 minutes early I would expect pretty much anyone to be in minimum 5-10 minutes before their shift starts anyway! I think you're under some sort of illusion that you're hard done by, nah, not really, it's what's expected and if you won't do it, don't worry, there's plenty of people out there who will do it, which no doubt your manager knows. Sorry to lay it on you, but in this environment I wouldn't go stirring up trouble as it's likely to end very badly for you.

There is a big difference between expecting people to be in the store and ready to start their shift on time (i.e. arriving on the premises 5 mins early) and formalising this into a requirement for staff to be 15 minutes early. And isn't tidying up part of the job and therefore something that most employers pay for?! There's being accommodating and flexible, and then there's lubing up and bending over.

OP - Good luck finding an alternative. There are plenty of employers who won't expect you to work for free.