I just wanted to check regarding how the UK minimum wage works online with one of the project websites where buyers offer projects and freelancers bid for them. In this instance, both are based in the 'uk I recently bid and was successful on a project where budget, timescale and objectives were agreed. I produced a good piece of work within the timescales and sent this off three weeks ago. When 'I came to invoice, the buyer rejected the project and in essence has asked for additional work that if I undertook would end up meaning that 'I would be paid 87p per hour for a month, as opposed to the 75 pound per day agreed. I was wondering where the law stands on online work in the Uk regarding the minimum wage?

Record £15.6 million underpayment identified for workers on the minimum wage READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-156-million-underpayment-identified-for-workers-on-the-minimum-wage

National Living Wage workers set for £600 pay rise from 1 April READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-living-wage-workers-set-for-600-pay-rise-from-1-april

Nearly 180 employers named and shamed for underpaying thousands of minimum wage workers READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nearly-180-employers-named-and-shamed-for-underpaying-thousands-of-minimum-wage-workers

Does a company by law have to apply when National Minimum Wage goes up in April even for temporary worker works through an agency?

Hello , I have found this to be a great site giving invaluable help and advice and would like to ask if anyone can advise on my problem. I will keep it as brief as I can. I was employed for 6 years with a retailer who recently changed ownership. I was on a salary contract. I left last December to become a full time carer. In the summer of 2016 I had family problems and informed my employer I would be resigning. They were initially supportive and my manager said I could work a reduced schedule while I sorted my problems out. This was agreed for 3 months initially. I told my manager I would need to inform housing benefits etc if I reduced my hours. He told me I would be paid the same and not lose any money so I didn't change anything with my benefits. My employer continued to pay me my full salary. This arrangement went on for 5 months in the end. At the end of the 5 months I told them that I still had issues to deal with at home and again tendered my resignation. Again they offered me a different choice, stay on but at an hourly rate which I did for the next 2 months before finally resigning for good to become a full time carer. The problem is that the company now say they overpaid me for those initial 5 months and the manager is saying he never said I would be entitled to full pay. They have been getting Ascent legal to send me letters wanting nerly £4000 in overpayments back and have just send me a letter of claim threatening legal action. No official changes were made to my contract - I was salary paid so received a regular amount each month. If I wasn't led to believe I was entitled to full salary I would have claimed the benefits to make up the difference. I cant backdate them now I have told them this and queried why they paid me full salary for 5 months - they say they made a mistake and didn't notice. I did initially say if there was an overpayment I would pay it back at an affordable rate ( my I&e calculation only left me £10ish a month to offer in the event there was an overpayment. Sorry to ramble but if anyone has any advice I will be very grateful. I haven't benefited at all from this situation as I would have actually been better of either resigning as I intended or changing my contract officially to 15 hours and claiming benefits. Thank you if you can advise

Hi. Just needed some advice. I currently work in the care industry. At our place we do sleep ins as our clients need 24 hour care. A letter was written complaining that in light of recent rulings regarding sleep in pay, the employer was underpaying us under the national minimum wage. This was discussed in our staff meeting with all the staff names typed on it. The area manager wanted to know who sent it. They were very dismissive of the letter. The area manager commented on the poor way it was written. They wrote directly to the individual concerned saying they would look into it. As per company procedure, they failed to respond within the 10 working days. In fear of being singled out and the effects it could have, an anonymous letter was sent to the company. It stated that they had broken the law by not paying the minimum wage. It also said we should have been paid the full amount from the end of July. It requested that a response had to be made in 14 days on how they were going to address the back pay. It also expressed concerns of what may happen to the sleep ins and how it could affect our residents. Whilst not everyone saw the letter before it was sent, then the manager has shown the staff since. Whilst some did not give their consent, all agree, including the manager that the contents were right. Our concerns were over the monies owed to us prior to the 27th July 2017, the monies due since then and proposed changes to our sleep-in arrangements. This also include our residents would not be covered. We wrote this as we feared our jobs if HR found out. 1) The company tried to find out who wrote the letter. They got all the staff to sign if they knew anything about the letter and did they give authorisation. Most of us signed we did not in order to protect our identities, but we all signed “but we agree with the contents”. We all felt the company was more focused on who wrote it, rather than address the issues. 2) Over the last few days, they have called us all in individually after the company had an emergency manager meeting. We were all told verbally that the company has until March 2019 to pay. In addition, they said that they would be waiting for an appeal due in March over sleep in pay. From what we have understood, the ruling regarding back dated pay by the inland revenue only applies to pay owed up to the 27th July 2017. Normal enforcement by HMRC applies for pay after this date. A number of care companies already pay the correct amount, but the company still only pay £35 for a 9.5/ 10 hour sleep in. We are often up during the night and rarely get any extra. 3) We were all told verbally that the company may have to consider closures if this is pursued. We all felt that this was delivered in a threatening manner. 4) In terms of moving forward, they have proposed that our sleep ins will change to on call. We were told we could leave the premises at night and come back, but we must be able to return to the premises within 10 minutes (Nobody lives within 10 minutes). It would be monitored and anyone arriving later will have their contracts terminated. In addition, we asked if all the staff leave the premises, what would happen. We were told someone would have to stay and cover. In other words, we all feel they are trying to avoid their legal obligations and have shown no interest in any ideas or other ways that can address this issue. Most of us feel that the company is trying to take advantage of some of our foreign workers who are too afraid to upset the company. This was given verbally and they wanted us to sign that we had a supervision over this issue. We have also checked our contracts. We have noticed that training is also not paid. Training is a requirement by CQC and other care authorities. All staff must have certain training. This also, we feel is breaking the rules on the minimum wage. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi - my wife recently applied to a local hotel for work as a housekeeper/cleaner. She now works full-time for the agency that supplies cleaners to that hotel and lots of other hotels. They pay only minimum wage but even so, I thought her wages were a little low considering how many hours she is working. On checking her own record of hours worked against her payslips, i found that nothing tallies at all and after telling her to confront one of her bosses about it, she was told that although her payslip tells her she is paid by the hour, in fact she is paid by how many rooms she cleans. 2 rooms = 1 hour. However, each room can take her up to 45 minutes so I think that she is therefore being paid less than MW. The company is quite big, i think, and employs a large number of Moldovan/Romanians (my wife is Romanian) i am concerned that they are exploiting a large number of people. Now i am unsure about who to approach and of course, if I am right at all - as a large company, perhaps what they are doing is completely above board? Any help at all would be very much appreciated. John

Hi would be grateful for some advice on this please, if someone is asked to move workplace to somewhere further away are they expected to be financially penalized for this? I.E somebody i know has been told they have to move workplace because its within a certain distance from their current workplace this will mean they will be paying out as much as £40 a week to make this journey which to me is a wage cut, is this right?

National Minimum Wage: Workers win £2m compensation READ MORE HERE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40952205

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen, Have currently been made full time by my current employer. It has been 3 weeks now. I was working for an employment agency ( removed by site team ) worst agency I have ever worked for, never paid the correct wages and took weeks to sort it. They have a finger print scanner to clock in and out, my new clock card system sits next to this. So, baring in mind I am full time and this agency knew I no longer worked for them, I occasionally just put my finger on the scanner just to confuse them, It was only a couple of times. On the 14th of April I got all of my holiday pay as expected. Last Friday the 21st of April, I got 40 hours of pay, the agency are saying I clocked in Monday to Friday. However, I was not even in work on good Friday. I have put the money they paid to one side, however, how do I stand on paying them back. It is obviously an admin error. They have an online payslip checker, and the payslip in question has been deleted, unlucky for them I have a copy on my mobile phone. Kind Regards Jason

Low earners risk tax shock on workplace pensions There is apparently an anomaly on some of the auto enrolment schemes. You can read more in the article linked below. https://www.ft.com/content/40af7052-0361-11e7-aa5b-6bb07f5c8e12

Hi guys! This is my first ever post on here and I'm in desperate need of help. I was employed as an apprentice from June 2015 working towards my NVQ Level 2 in Customer Service. Originally, my NVQ was supposed to end in October 2016 but as my employer refused to let me work towards it (I was told that absolutely everything else in the office took priority over my NVQ work) the end date was extended by my NVQ assessor to October 2017. When my end date was extended, my NVQ assessor informed me that the minimum wage I was entitled to would have increased in June 2016 (after completing my first year of employment) and that my employer had been paying me below this amount for the past 4 months. My assessor told me that they would pass this information on to my manager and confirmed that they had done so via email. Four weeks passed with no mention of this at work at all. My NVQ assessor came into the office to help me get started on the next part of my course. At the end of the day, they asked me if anything had been said about my wage increasing and the money that I was owed. I confirmed that nothing had been mentioned. She went and had a word with my manager and came back and told me that my employer knows that they need to back pay me and that they were going to deal with it shortly. Two days later, my manager asked me to go to a one-to-one meeting where they confirmed that I was going to be back paid the amount of money that I was owed but that, due to a move-around in our department, my position no longer existed and that I would be out of a job this time next week. I was told that there were no problems with my performance, only that my role didn't exist anymore. A reshaping of our department had never been discussed, nor was I ever told that my role might not be there in the future. I was also only given 6 days notice when my contract said that I was entitled to a minimum of 3 weeks. Also, no-one else in the company has lost their job as a result of the reshuffle: I am the only person to have been negatively affected by this. I called ACAS and they told me to write down everything that I think my employer did wrong in a letter and then send it to my employer. The lady on the phone then said to wait 14 days and try to begin the early conciliation process. She told me that it sounded like what my employer did to me was illegal and I've gone through loads of other articles online posted by Law Firms which all seem to suggest that this I have been made redundant unfairly. I was just wondering what other people make of this? Has my employer acted wrongly and am I right in looking to escalate this? I'm really distressed due to the time of year where this has happened and I just want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. Thank you all so much! Any help is greatly appreciated.

A friend of mine is a carer but she may be handing in her notice today but this is one (of many) areas I have little to no experience in so any help would be gratefully accepted. This lady is on £7.35 per hour. She only gets paid for the time she spends at the clients home, no travel time is paid. She has to be at her first client around 6:00 who lives 15 minutes away and during the day she has times where she is not needed so has 2-3 hours off each day however she also does the night run, getting her clients into bed. She doesn't normally get home until 10:30-11:00 and then up again at 05:00 to start this all over again. Surely there must be some breach of law there. Her wage slips do not show how many hours she has worked, just a unit rate. The same applies to her mileage allowance. For her mileage allowance, nothing is paid for the first 25 miles and then 12 per mile. She does on average 50 miles a day and tends to work 6 days a week. I already have her permission to act on her behalf so when she does hand in her notice, I will be sending a SAR to the head office of the company she works for. Hopefully they will specify how many miles they have paid for and any other allowances (if any) Is there any way of calculating hours based on mileage? This is a rural area so not much traffic. She has not opted out of the working time regs even though she does more than 48 hours per week. she is on a zero hours contract so she feels that she has to do the work or lose money from losing hours if she objects.

I am asking this on behalf of my son in law. After 8 years working as a senior personal assistant for a young man who had several medical problems he was made redundant due to him passing away. He was unemployed for a few weeks when a position came up for a senior at a local care home. When he was interviewed he was old they had failed the CQC and wanted his help to turn the home around. From day one the other staff where resentful towards him. One womn especially took a total dislike to him and made his life hell. Whatever he said or did they would just treat him by reporting everything back to the manager. There he saw mistreatment of residence and of other members of staff. Then the rota started to change from being a week of different shifts to maybe 2 days of nights and nothing else. for 2 weeks in a row he was given no shifts which when you have a home and a family to support you can't work no hours. He was in his 12 week trial when he was witness to a residence being deprived of a drink of water and hard the carer call this woman "a whinging *unt" he went home the in the morning and said he could not go back. He hadn't signed a contact and he was still in the trial period. Yesterday he got his P45 and his final pay slip. The payslip was for £449 for hours done before he left and then there was a deduction which is for covering shift due to leaving of £449. This left him with £0. Since he left the 4 members of staff who started at the same time has him have already left. He wasn't on a zero hours contact he was on a 36 hour contact as they do 12 hours per day. Is there anything he can do regarding his wages that they are holding. He was still in the trial period, he hadn't signed a contact and had no support from the Manager of the home or the owners when he approached them to tell them of what was going on. Why take him on if they don't want to hear the truth.

Hi Took out a loan in 2013 when i was unemployed after a difficult time stupid idea at the time now ive been working for the last 2 and a half years ive cleared all my debts well thats what i thought until i got a letter from these cow boys this morning stating i owe them £292.00 from a debt dated back in 2013 which i thought was cleared, and i completly forgot about it. So i got this letter this morning threatning to pass it over to Moorcrap Debt Recovery telling me they will come round my house etc not that im bothered i welcome there arrival to be pushed back down the drive way. I am not refusing to pay the loan but what is really bugging me is i only borrowed £130 and these people have stuck almost 60 percent extra on top i know they have to make a little bit extra etc but £160 extra!?!?!?! Ive told them that i will only pay the remaining balance if they come to some agreement with myself i will not involve myself with Moorcroft and will ignore all there letters I am still waiting on a reply So my questions are why are these people waiting 3 years without any correspondance on this time frame, Is this a tactic to add alot of fees before they process a letter of harrassment ? Can they still persue all these fees when the only letter ive had off them is threats of DCA since 2013 ? this seems to be a little tactic they are good at from other things ive read about WDA on here

A close family member has received a letter from Moorcroft re a loan they had with WDA. They were suffering financial difficulty and informed WDA of this, the amount was total payable £278. Letters e-mails and financial statements were sent to WDA to make offer for re-payment, this was sent by Royal Mail signed for del, which was received and signed for by WDA in May 2014. WDA had requested they send them Bank Statements which was refused by relative as they had sent them financial statements and step change docs. To date no agreement has been reached, the last contact with WDA was 16th June 2014.The amount now outstanding according to Moorcroft letter is now £480. 00. Moorcroft are threatening a home visit and also they are willing via their client WDA to offer a discount from the outstanding balance. This means that if you are able to pay an acceptable lump sum we /they will not attempt to recover the remaining balance of the debt. In addition your credit file will be marked as partially satisfied and our staff will be happy to explain what this means when you contact us. Question 1, is what should they do next. Question 2. Should Moorcroft be ignored and solely deal with WDA. All information and assistance will be gratefully received. "EXEMPLO DUCEMUS" "EXEMPLO DUCEMUS"

From today, national living wage pays £7.20 an hour, wow, think of what you could do with the money..

Hi all,i currently work as a carer in a private nursing home.I am on minimum wage.we have been told we have a meeting at work to discuss ways that our company will be able to afford the new minimum wage. They are talking of cutting our working hours from 7 hours to 6 hours daily.This will then stop us from having a break.Our holiday entiltement will be less.We will lose an hours pay each day. Can they do this ? Can it be fair that we are being made to pay for the rise in minimum pay rising to £7.20 by our hours being changed. I have worked there for 4.5 years and work 28 hours a week and have a contract. Thankyou Debbie

From 1 April 2016, the living wage will commence for all employees 25 years or over; and your employer will have to pay you £7.20 per hour Asking in my work place we cant get a direct answer, now hoping someone here can confirm the government position on this; Asda have not made any comment on this https://www.livingwage.gov.uk/ Apart from what is said on the government web site So from the 1 April 2016, is the living wage actually law, and your employer has no choice but to pay £7.20 a hour

Hi guys and gals I need some advice please. Basically I lived with my partner and 3 kids and started a new job after having my baby. HB requested my first 2 wage slips on receipt which I handed in and continued to get HB payments. So now this is where it gets complicated. My ex was abusive (we have moved away from him recently) and took all my money for himself so I thought I would buy replacement wage slips with different amounts on them so he wouldnt know how much i had earned. Problem is that I left them with my paperwork and thats what I had handed in to the council not my actual slips. This came to light on monday when I received a letter stating the details HMRC had provided were different to the ones I had. I looked properly into my paperwork and immediately saw what i had done. I went in to the council and gave all 3 of my slips in but now im worried that I should have given an explanation into what happened. At the very least there is a small over payment. My main concern is that they will think I tried to trick them. What should I do and what will happen now ???

What is the point in introducing a living wage, if there is no legal obligation to pay it ?

found this template letter posted by sidewinder on another thread that I intend to use as my hubby and his son haven't been paid there lie week my hubby has been waiting 2 weeks son should have had his this week if the wages are not paid after the letter is sent what is the next stage its this bit im worried about ( I will be forced to instigate proceedings to recover the unpaid amount) Dear Sir I was previously employed by [Employer Name] from [Date] until [Date] and my Employee Number was [Number] I am concerned that having left your employment, an amount of wages remains outstanding and despite making previous requests the amount of [£Amount] remains unpaid My calculation of the above figure is as follows:- [insert details of how the amount is made up] You will be aware that a failure to pay outstanding wages represents an Unlawful Deduction contrary to Section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 I require payment of the amount due within 14 days from the date of this letter, or your reasons why you believe that the amount is not owed to me, or I will be forced to instigate proceedings to recover the unpaid amount Yours faithfully [signature] [Printed Name]

Hi Before I speak to my local council tomorrow I wondered if you could help me with a question. I received a housing benefit review letter with two form. As a sole trader I have to fill in my expenditure form-no problem. The other form is an A/B/C form. Part of the form is asking me to send in 5 weeks pay slips or 1 month payslip. I don't have either as I am self employed and don't have pay slips. Thanks

Hi there, My partner has just received a letter at home stating that her wages are about to be arrested for council tax arrears. My partner, my 18 month old son and I live on my partners part time wage of £520 per month as I am ill, and while I am entitled to employment support allowance due to the illness, I am apparently not entitled to any actual payment as my partner is expected to provide for me. So the 19% of her wage that will be taken in the wage arrestment will quite literally wipe us out and end us. Now I am aware that this is a debt that has to be paid and we actually have tried to make arrangements but this is where things have confused me. At the start of the year I was trying to make arrangements for a payment plan via e-mail and was offered a payment plan of £20 a month which I accepted. After I accepted I never heard anything else from the council, no confirmation of the plan. Regardless, I began to pay the agreed amount of £20 per month and today we were sent the letter stating that her wage was being arrested. Any advice anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated, as we are now at our wits end. Thanks Lee