Sick pay dispute, any advice appreciated

Arem

This is my first post so if you read this, many thanks.
I work for a very large UK company, and unfortunately in Feb I had to take 6 days off (including my 2 normal days off) an 1 day off in march.
When I looked at my payslip, I noticed I had been deducted 8.5 hours for every working day I was off.
Firstly, as I don't get paid for lunch breaks, should they have only taken 8 hours off me per day? And after looking on the government website it states that I get Sick Pay after 4 days including non working days, which wasn't paid.
Now, my workplace have a habit of adding 15 mins onto my shift every now and again without paying me for it, so when I brought this up along side my underpaid wage slip yet again, my boss put a £1 coin into my hand and said, 'there you go, now stop complaining and shut up'. Not very professional.
What would your advice be on how to take this further as I am getting nowhere with this my employer? Many thanks in advance for any advice as this is driving me crazy at the moment.

paddedjohn

Since your boss wants to act like an idiot I would bypass him and get in touch with your hr dept and ask them to sort the matter out.

Savvy_Sue

If you're normally paid for 8 hours, then that's what they should have deducted.

You should have had SSP, but possibly only one day's worth. Can you list the actual dates you were sick, and flag which were working days and which non-working days?

Finally, how long have you worked there? If less than a year, you have very few rights, so kicking up too much fuss may see you not having a job. That's not a reason not to ask whoever does payroll, just an observation ...

chrisbur

Regarding the statutory sick pay. Was the day off in March seperate to the time off in February, that is did you do any work between them, if so then this day would not be considered for SSP? Were the six days in February six consecutive days of sickness when no work at all was done, did you notify your employer when required to, and was your average earnings in the eight weeks before the sickness at least up to the lower earnings limit? If so and assuming that your qualifying days are the days you normally work, the day in March was seperate and you had no linking sickness then you would have been due 1 day of SSP at 1/5 of the weekly rate. If this is not paid you would need to query it with your employer, I would suggest when querying the other matters with HR and if you are not satisfied you can request a written statement as to why it was not paid and can use this to request a formal decission from HMRC about payment.

zzzLazyDaisy

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Finally, how long have you worked there? If less than a year, you have very few rights, so kicking up too much fuss may see you not having a job.

Just to say that for anyone who started employment after April 2012, the service requirement for employment protection is now TWO years.

Jules2012

Contact their HR department. SSP is a statutory right as long as you meet the SSP eligibility, you do not have to be employed one/two years for this right.

However if you work for an employer who can't work out your wages or what your entitled to then chances are they will soon think of a reason to get rid of you.

Savvy_Sue

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Just to say that for anyone who started employment after April 2012, the service requirement for employment protection is now TWO years.

Yes, but as it's only just April I knew that in this case one year should do it ...

Should have done the one or two year thing but was too tired to work out what to say at the time!

chris is asking the right questions!

zzzLazyDaisy

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Yes, but as it's only just April I knew that in this case one year should do it ...

I understand where you are coming from... and sorry to be pernickety...

But OP said he has been with this employer for only 6 months (ie he started working for the company around October last year) so in OP's needs two years service before he qualifies for employment protection - the old 'one year rule' was never going to apply in this case.

Savvy_Sue

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

I understand where you are coming from... and sorry to be pernickety...

But OP said he has been with this employer for only 6 months (ie he started working for the company around October last year) so in OP's needs two years service before he qualifies for employment protection - the old 'one year rule' was never going to apply in this case.

I have no problem with pernickitiness, but I've re-read the OP several times now and can't see where they say how long they've worked for this employer!

zzzLazyDaisy

How odd, my apologies, you are absolutely right. Must have had a senior moment <shakes head>

Arem

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

I understand where you are coming from... and sorry to be pernickety...

But OP said he has been with this employer for only 6 months (ie he started working for the company around October last year) so in OP's needs two years service before he qualifies for employment protection - the old 'one year rule' was never going to apply in this case.

Hi, thank you all for your great responses. Very helpful I must say. In ref to the above quote, this is very strange, I forgot to put when i started working there, but you are exactly right, i started in october last year. very strange you got that right

Anyway, my days off were 31/01 to 05/02. My non work days were 02/02 and 03/02.