Employer is refusing to pay my flatmate until her last day of work

nickgowdy

Hi guys,

I'll try to describe the situation the best that I can as my flatmate has several problems in regards to her payslip.

To give some context, my flat-mate works as a full time nanny for a family which for all intents and purposes is her employer. She has been working for them more than 3 months and it's starting to come to light more details about the working arrangment that seems suspicious.

First of all, my flat-mate found her job through an employment agency and they helped her out with securing the job offer. Nothing strange about that. My flat-mate is paid everyweek which is stated in the work contract but she is paid cash in hand. My flat-mate was initially concerned about a lack of payslip which at first she wasn't recieving. She had concerned that she raised to her employer because she wasn't sure if she was paying income tax and national insurance contributions. After some effort on her part to get her employer to comply with that they eventually setup her payslip electronically through a payslip website.

For a while things were ok but recently she had to take a week-off through sick leave. She went to the doctors who gave her a prescription clearly stating the problem which was back-pain (don't remember the specifics of it from the top of my head). This is when things started to take a turn for the worse. Her employer has yet to pay her sick pay and it's unclear how much sick pay she is supposed to recieve. Then last week she returned to work and she hasn't been paid for that week of work. Tuesday 20th - Saturday 25.

There work relationship hasn't been great for a while and my flat-mate decided to hand her notice in. Today my flat-mate told me that she won't get paid until 5th July (her last day of work with them) and even then it's dubious if they will actually pay her.

Some other points as well:

• Her hours are 10-6pm but her working day starts on a Tuesday and she works until Saturday. So her days off are Sunday and Monday. In her contract it says she has 20 days paid leave but it's unclear if she has the minimum of 28 days if including bank-holidays. She has to my knowledge worked on a bank-holiday as it was on a Friday.
• Her employers paid for a plane ticket on her behalf so she could accompany them and do her job as a nanny while all of them are on holiday in New Zeland. However her employer has the problem that the ticket is in my flat-mate's name and the employer is unhappy about that and she wants my flat-mate to pay for it.
• My flat-mate has been unhappy that she is essentially doing two roles. Her proper role as a nanny but also working as a house keeper. Her and the employer have had arguements over this.
• Her employer thinks that she has been mislead over the state of my flat-mates health because she has a back-problem and it's uncomftable for her to do some manual labour.

So after all of that, my flat-mate is in a situation where she wants the money she is owed but doesn't know the best action to take. In my opinion I think the family (her employer) has deliberatly set out unfair working conditions from the start and that my flatmate hasn't done anything wrong. She wanted everything to be legal and above board from the start and standard working rights that she should have anyway. She also has the disadvantage of having less than fluent english, so it's more difficult for her to argue her case and I think her employer has taken advantage of that.


Does anyone on this forum have any experience or advice that could help her?


Regards,
Nick

Undervalued

Although she is entitled to be paid on time (presumably the end of the month) there are no effective steps she can take if her employer pays her a few weeks late.

If they fail to pay at all then she can issue a letter before action and, if necessary, sue in the small claims court.

Assuming she works full time she is entitled to 28 days holiday per year. The employer can dictate when she can and cannot take her holiday so, if she has to work on bank holidays, then her holiday has to be at another time.

Assuming she qualifies then she is entitled to SSP if she is off sick for more than three days. Her employer must pay this, anything over and above is a contractual matter.

Pretty much all jobs will require you do other duties at the employer's discretion. So, some housekeeping instead of child minding is probably perfectly reasonable.

Takeaway_Addict

nickgowdy wrote: »

Hi guys,

I'll try to describe the situation the best that I can as my flatmate has several problems in regards to her payslip.

To give some context, my flat-mate works as a full time nanny for a family which for all intents and purposes is her employer. She has been working for them more than 3 months and it's starting to come to light more details about the working arrangment that seems suspicious.

First of all, my flat-mate found her job through an employment agency and they helped her out with securing the job offer. Nothing strange about that. My flat-mate is paid everyweek which is stated in the work contract but she is paid cash in hand. My flat-mate was initially concerned about a lack of payslip which at first she wasn't recieving. She had concerned that she raised to her employer because she wasn't sure if she was paying income tax and national insurance contributions. After some effort on her part to get her employer to comply with that they eventually setup her payslip electronically through a payslip website.

For a while things were ok but recently she had to take a week-off through sick leave. She went to the doctors who gave her a prescription clearly stating the problem which was back-pain (don't remember the specifics of it from the top of my head). This is when things started to take a turn for the worse. Her employer has yet to pay her sick pay and it's unclear how much sick pay she is supposed to recieve. Then last week she returned to work and she hasn't been paid for that week of work. Tuesday 20th - Saturday 25.

There work relationship hasn't been great for a while and my flat-mate decided to hand her notice in. Today my flat-mate told me that she won't get paid until 5th July (her last day of work with them) and even then it's dubious if they will actually pay her.

Some other points as well:

• Her hours are 10-6pm but her working day starts on a Tuesday and she works until Saturday. So her days off are Sunday and Monday. In her contract it says she has 20 days paid leave but it's unclear if she has the minimum of 28 days if including bank-holidays. She has to my knowledge worked on a bank-holiday as it was on a Friday.
• Her employers paid for a plane ticket on her behalf so she could accompany them and do her job as a nanny while all of them are on holiday in New Zeland. However her employer has the problem that the ticket is in my flat-mate's name and the employer is unhappy about that and she wants my flat-mate to pay for it.
• My flat-mate has been unhappy that she is essentially doing two roles. Her proper role as a nanny but also working as a house keeper. Her and the employer have had arguements over this.
• Her employer thinks that she has been mislead over the state of my flat-mates health because she has a back-problem and it's uncomftable for her to do some manual labour.

So after all of that, my flat-mate is in a situation where she wants the money she is owed but doesn't know the best action to take. In my opinion I think the family (her employer) has deliberatly set out unfair working conditions from the start and that my flatmate hasn't done anything wrong. She wanted everything to be legal and above board from the start and standard working rights that she should have anyway. She also has the disadvantage of having less than fluent english, so it's more difficult for her to argue her case and I think her employer has taken advantage of that.


Does anyone on this forum have any experience or advice that could help her?


Regards,
Nick

Because you're not biased at all...

nickgowdy

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Because you're not biased at all...

Point taken, obviously I'm going to side with her. I don't know how to best advise her so that's why I've come to the forum.

nickgowdy

Undervalued wrote: »

Although she is entitled to be paid on time (presumably the end of the month) there are no effective steps she can take if her employer pays her a few weeks late.

If they fail to pay at all then she can issue a letter before action and, if necessary, sue in the small claims court.

Assuming she works full time she is entitled to 28 days holiday per year. The employer can dictate when she can and cannot take her holiday so, if she has to work on bank holidays, then her holiday has to be at another time.

Assuming she qualifies then she is entitled to SSP if she is off sick for more than three days. Her employer must pay this, anything over and above is a contractual matter.

Pretty much all jobs will require you do other duties at the employer's discretion. So, some housekeeping instead of child minding is probably perfectly reasonable.

I guess the next step for her would be to look at the contract again and confirm that it's the case that she doesn't have the minimum amount of paid holiday.

So regarding not being paid on time, she just has to wait and see what happens? Is her employer breaking the contract by stating that they will only pay her on her final day of work when it says in the contract that she will be paid weekly?

itchyfeet123

nickgowdy wrote: »

I don't know how to best advise her so that's why I've come to the forum.

Is there a reason you are doing this research instead of your flatmate? I'm sure you have the best of intentions, but unless there's some reason your flatmate can't do it herself (language barrier, learning disability, no internet access, etc) then your involving yourself won't help in the long term. I understand the instinct to help, but since this isn't an area where you have expertise, perhaps the best way you can be helpful is to be a supportive flatmate. That may not feel like you're "doing" anything, but unless you've been asked to do all this, you're signalling to your flatmate that you don't think she is capable. At the risk of projection, very few of us actually want a knight in shining armour to rescue us.

Undervalued

nickgowdy wrote: »

I guess the next step for her would be to look at the contract again and confirm that it's the case that she doesn't have the minimum amount of paid holiday.

So regarding not being paid on time, she just has to wait and see what happens? Is her employer breaking the contract by stating that they will only pay her on her final day of work when it says in the contract that she will be paid weekly?

Yes they are but she has no effective remedy. Any legal action will take time, well beyond 5th July. As I said if they ultimately don't pay her then she can take action which, on the face of it, she will win. Even then if they dig their heels in it could take quite a few months to finally extract the money.

Her only other option, if they don't pay at the contracted time, is to walk out without notice. Normally that would be breach of contract but she could argue that the employer has fundamentally broken the contract by refusing to pay on the agreed days. That leaves her without a job for a couple of weeks and probably sill with a battle to get what she is owed.

leslieknope

i'm fairly certain that unless it's specified in her contract, they can't make her pay for that plane ticket.

nickgowdy

Undervalued wrote: »

Yes they are but she has no effective remedy. Any legal action will take time, well beyond 5th July. As I said if they ultimately don't pay her then she can take action which, on the face of it, she will win. Even then if they dig their heels in it could take quite a few months to finally extract the money.

I guess that's her best course of action then?

nickgowdy

leslieknope wrote: »

i'm fairly certain that unless it's specified in her contract, they can't make her pay for that plane ticket.

Nope, it doesn't say anything of the sort. I find it absolutely absurd that she wants to make her pay for the ticket.

xapprenticex

the fact you are here and not her gives me the impression she will be just fine.