Help needed! Want to report Employers unfair practice

Tarasimms

Hi,

I hope someone with employment law knowledge may be able to help.

In March this year I began working for a new company that was made up of just the two directors, I was offered the job a few days after the interview but never received anything in writing, so I took it to be a verbal contract of employment, however I also never received a written statement of particulars after the first 8 weeks had passed.

From March - July I worked from the house of one of the directors who said my lunch was one hour, we then moved to premises in July and the other director questioned why I was taking one hour for lunch and he said 'I don't know where this one hour lunch business has come from' so I explained the other director had stated that I should take one hour. From this point, there was never a clear understanding of how long a lunch break I could have or whether I could have a break at all as this director had said (who owns another business) 'we don't take lunch breaks'. He also intimated that unless you stayed beyond 5.30pm (technically the end of my working day) you weren't 'stepping up'. This left me feeling genuinely afraid to leave at 5.30pm, so the days where he was present, I would stay beyond that time.

There was another person employed by this director who had worked from his house and had now joined us in the shared office space. In August, the director told this guy they no longer needed him but asked him to stay for a further two weeks to conduct a 'hand over' - after the humiliating way he had been told he was no longer needed, the guy declined and left immediately. They told me the day before that they were going to do this - I was horrified as I had to keep quiet when working with this guy for the rest of that day and the next : ( I just felt that things were getting more and more unethical.

Over the last few months since my colleagues rapid departure, I have had to absorb his job role leaving me very little time to complete certain jobs within my own (original) remit. I have stayed late on numerous occasions (no paid overtime) and worked extra hard to cover all aspects of the business as day to day there was only myself and the other (female) director in the office - as the other (male) director had another business, he rarely appeared in our office.

I have just been on holiday and took 7 (pre-booked) days off work. I was due back to the office on Monday this week, but whilst I was away I could still receive my work emails and I noticed certain things were being changed in my absence (passwords etc) which rang alarm bells - it was almost like they were preparing to get rid of me on my return. On Monday morning, I text my boss (female director) to say I was back and would see her later, she replied to say she wasn't there but was at an official photoshoot for our products in London. As part of my job role, I would usually have been heavily involved in this - another sign that they were phasing me out. She also said she had got my work laptop with her in London as she needed it for something (I knew she didn't need it) so she said there wasn't much to do in the office and mentioned a couple of small jobs I could do in her absence. I couldn't do this as my work laptop contained all the documents and emails I would need to work. So I asked should I use the spare computer in the office.

Something else I noticed whilst on holiday - the company uses social media on a regular basis, a big part of my role was to update this often but as mentioned previously, I had to absorb my former colleagues work load which was mainly order processing/packing/invoicing (a far cry from my actual role) so this took me away from updating the social media sites. A month or two previously, there had been talk of getting a girl she knew to do some freelance PR, marketing and help with social media - it never came to fruition. However when I was away, I noticed this girl had tweeted that she'd been in for a meeting at our office, this aroused suspicion.

Once in the office on Monday, I decided to check my bosses emails (I often had to do this when she was away) and to my horror, discovered emails that had been trashed, basically employing this girl to do the part of my job I'd initially been employed to do but couldn't as processing the orders was priority! This had all been arranged during the time I was on holiday, so I called my boss and challenged her and she just said 'well you've not been happy for a while' so I said of course not, all I've been doing for the last three months is processing stock and packing boxes!! After that I basically told her I thought my days in the company were numbered and that I was sure they were going to get rid of me to save money as this other girl was a cheap freelancer. My boss didn't deny it, so I said I would save them the bother and I would leave there and then.

When I returned home that day, the other (male) director called and initially wanted to reprimand me for the way I had spoken to the other (female) director (also his on/off partner) so I explained that I had simply asked for an explanation and that I felt betrayed after working so hard for their company for the last 9 months, he said I was being melodramatic! I asked him to be completely honest and tell me where they planning to get rid of me - he said they had been talking about it for the last two weeks and he was going to speak to me the next day! He said they didn't want to do it just before I went on holiday, I said they could have at least afforded me the courtesy of giving me the heads up - he merely put it down to the dwindling finances of they company.

Fast forward to today and I was due to receive my full months pay - I have been checking all day and nothing had been paid, so I sent an email to their accountancy firm who do the wages and asked when I could expect them. The (male) director immediately called me to say he was going into the office to reconcile my holidays before they paid me - which I understand to mean, they will be deducting money from my wages? As I have no written contact or statement am I right in thinking it is Illegal to deduct anything from my wages without my written consent?

I no I have very little legal rights as I have only been employed with this company for the last 9 months, but I want to raise a complaint so they cannot do this to anyone else.

To my knowledge they have also breached numerous health and safety aspects with the office space they are using and also there were no risk assessments done - I ended up having to lift boxes and move stock around (which I wasn't prepared for) and subsequently ended up having to see a Dr about my back

I would be grateful for any help and advice - thanks for reading.

When_the_going_gets_tough

You are entitled to paid holiday but remember it is 28 days for a whole year so if you have worked for them for 9 months it would be 21 days. Normally the employer can deduct additional holiday taken when you leave but they also need to pay you if you have untaken holiday. In addtion you are entitled to paid notice - its not entirely clear whether in your agreement to leave you agreed to forfeit this - others may correct me but I think in the absence of a contract you are entitled to 1 weeks notice during your first year. I should concentrate on getting your wages paid correctly and put the whole business down to experience. If you can arrange a good reference that may be more useful to you than complaining about them. In law you are entitled to a 20 minute unpaid break if working over 6 hours but I don't think there is much you could do about this now. I should calculate exactly what you are due and try to leave on professional terms. People who set up businesses frequently fail to think about the details of employing staff and in the end loyal staff are worth a great deal. Good luck

John1993_2

To whom do you want to report them? Without trying to be facetious, there exists no "fairness ombudsman", and there are no rules or laws that say that employers have to be overly considerate, or nice people.

If they have breached employment (or other) laws, that's a very different matter, and more informed people than I will hopefully be along to help you, but your thread title does suggest that you want to complain, to someone, about them just not being great bosses.

I'd recommend forgetting that, it won't do you any good, and, as I say above, there isn't acually a fairness tsar, ministry, or ombudsman who'd care to hear it.