Forums Forums Wirral Information Law And Your Rights Rise in the Living Wage

Can i run this by the good members on here and tell me your thoughts.
The living wage went up on April 1st, and to many workers on low pay this was well news, now i understand a lot of compaines are trying to work out how to pay this increase of 33p and hour, to some it might mean putting prices up in a shop or cafe etc, to others it could mean cutting down on staff perks if they receive them.
But the firm i work for did this, they emply a thousand people up and down the country, but i will tell you of where i work, we are on contract to work at another comapany [ trying not to give too much away, and to what we do] there are eight of us who do two hours each, one of those has been off on sick leave for a few weks, now our boss has told us, that person has been moved to somewhere else, so that leaves seven, the boss said one of the other workers will now have to do the other person's work to fill the void as well as their on,[ remember we do two hours!].
So one of us now has to do four hours work in a two hour slot, the other seven now help out by doing a little share of it to lighten the load, we will be paid the 33 p and hour but have been given more work to do in the same time, So our company doesn't pay out a £33 week rise to the eight workers but saves £40 by getting rid of one of them
Is this legal, You're thoughts please.

Legal? Probably. Ethical and moral? Nope.

Very little you can do about it if you aren't unionised. Without unions employees are in a very weak position and makes it so much easier for employers to abuse its workforce.

If it is possible to do 4 hours work in 2 hours then there isn't any scope to complain. If its not possible and you work more than two hours but only get paid for two hours then the employer is in breach of minimum wage regulations.

You should have a contract of employment, it may have details of what work you are expected to carry out.

Thanks for this guys, at the might the place where we do the work is doing stocktaking so very little work going on, and we come in after they go home, so we managed to get our work done, even the extra work, we are shatted by the end of it, and beinging in my mind we do other jobs in other places.
So we don't know how we are going to cope when the place gets back in to full production next week.
As for a contract of employment i remember signing some for few years back, can't remember what was on it or even recieving a copy, when you ask for a copy there's always some excuse given, like we will give it next week and so on!

Try your MP. They can apply pressure unofficially that may well be more effective than the law, particularly if any part of your company is doing or trying to do government work.

It would be very hard to give an answer without full details, you say you are contracted out to another company, is it this other company that has cut the workforce? it reeks of agency work, the fairest way would be to split the work between all of you as I cant see doubling the work load of one person being fair under the circumstances, you can only do what is reasonably expected in that time frame, other things to be taken into account are Health and safety issues, again without knowing the full circumstances, could involve manual handling.

Here are my thoughts, and it’s not specific to your situation more of a general opinion. As much as we all hate ‘the man’ and we feel like the boss is trying to pull one over us. Companies don’t have an unlimited pot of money to dish out as wages, there is usually a percentage of revenue to be used for salary, if you exceed this amount then you either sacrifice profit, increase prices or rationalise expenses (starting with the workforce)

Starting a company comes at great personal expense in both money, time and risk, if your company becomes a success and you need to hire workforce then it’s only right that you as the employer should make a profit that is worth the risk of bankruptcy should it all go horribly wrong. A good ethical employer should offer job security for a fair pay but not at the expense of the company failing. Above all the company must survive to keep all the other employees in a job.

A company is only as good as its workforce, no workforce no company, abused workforce poor motivation = poor output / production, leads to unrest, disputes union action = damage to the company, loss of profits and business, a vicious circle, recent events are critical of the way a lot of companies and businesses are operated, allowed to be run down whilst paying themselves high salaries and bonuses, at the expense of the workforce.

I agree with everything you say. I am thinking of companies with a 20-50 strong workforce. These types of companies are always make or break on profit margins. Larger companies and yes bigger profits, bigger bonuses etc.

I think people will never agree on this but in the perfect world, the owners treat the staff fairly, the staff will be good employees. Real world, staff will always think they deserve more and owners will always look to cut costs!

Money or not, other workers having to do the work of another who has left is clearly wrong.



If the boss had made the person redundant due to a lack of work, that would be one thing. But there's no evidence of this in the OP.