Employer reducing hours and deducting difference from last months overtime. Legal?

[gravygranules]

I am on a 30 hour contract. The wording is "Contracted Hours per wk: 30". The contract also says "The company may vary your hours of work". As they are giving everyone less than their contracted hours I suppose they are able to get away with it due to that clause.

Anyway, our overtime is paid a month in arrears so any overtime I did in October isn't paid until payday at the end of November. Contracted hours, however, are paid at the end of every month as normal.

So, in October I did my contracted hours plus 10 hours of overtime. In November, however, I only ended up doing my contracted hours minus 6 hours because they gave us less hours. On November's pay slip it says "October -£39" which works out as 6 hours of work. This looks like they are taking November's missing hours out of October's overtime (I did check with one manager who said this is what the company does). I thought that overtime was mine but apparently they can just give me less hours the next month and claw it back! Is that even legal? Do they somehow get away with it because October's overtime technically hasn't been paid yet? Seems really cheeky. What are they going to do come the end of December? There won't be any overtime from November for them to dip into. Also, we've been allocated holiday here and there (without asking us) just to make up the extra hours.

I think it's really wrong. If I was on a 20 hour contract but worked the same hours as I had in October and November they wouldn't have taken any money off me because I'd have averaged over 20 hours per week still.

[teaboy2]

Re: Employer reducing hours and deducting difference from last months overtime. Legal

No they can not. Your pay is determined by the hours you worked during that pay period, they can not deduct from your october pay period the hours you did not work in the November pay period, doing so is not only unlawful deductions of wages under section 13 of the employment rights act 1996, but also amounts to defrauding you, which would likely be a breach of the fraud act 2008 - As clearly the employer is doing it knowingly. By that i mean, they have knowingly took the 6 hours out of the hours you worked in October and in effect reduced the 10 hours overtime to 4 hours overtime only. Meaning you only get paid for 4 hours over time despite working 10 hours. It is also defrauding the tax man as it means less tax being paid to what should be paid.

My advice is for you to issue a fromal grievance (without mentioning the fraud aspect just yet), and contact both ACAS, and the HMRC. Acas will be able to help you with dealing with the employer and get back any and all (up to six years worth or lengh of time you have worked their if less than 6 years) unlawfully deducted pay paid back to you, and likely all employees of the company, or take tribunal or even civil court action (civil being the better for unlawfully deducted wages). The HMRC on the other hand will be very interested in here of potential tax fraud as well.

[JoyLinford]

Re: Employer reducing hours and deducting difference from last months overtime. Legal

I am on a 30 hour contract. The wording is "Contracted Hours per wk: 30". The contract also says "The company may vary your hours of work". As they are giving everyone less than their contracted hours I suppose they are able to get away with it due to that clause.

Anyway, our overtime is paid a month in arrears so any overtime I did in October isn't paid until payday at the end of November. Contracted hours, however, are paid at the end of every month as normal.

So, in October I did my contracted hours plus 10 hours of overtime. In November, however, I only ended up doing my contracted hours minus 6 hours because they gave us less hours. On November's pay slip it says "October -£39" which works out as 6 hours of work. This looks like they are taking November's missing hours out of October's overtime (I did check with one manager who said this is what the company does). I thought that overtime was mine but apparently they can just give me less hours the next month and claw it back! Is that even legal? Do they somehow get away with it because October's overtime technically hasn't been paid yet? Seems really cheeky. What are they going to do come the end of December? There won't be any overtime from November for them to dip into. Also, we've been allocated holiday here and there (without asking us) just to make up the extra hours.

I think it's really wrong. If I was on a 20 hour contract but worked the same hours as I had in October and November they wouldn't have taken any money off me because I'd have averaged over 20 hours per week still.

A contract may be broken if your employer does not follow a term in the contract. You employer has broken the law according to ACAS. This is known as a breach of contract. For example, if your employer doesn't pay you in lieu of notice which you are entitled to under your contract, this would be a breach of contract.
If your employer breaks your contract, you should try and sort the matter out with them informally first.
If this doesn't work, you could try raising a grievance against your employer. There are special procedures you may need to follow if you want to take out a grievance against your employer.

I have sent you PM. Please have a look at your inbox.

[teaboy2]

Re: Employer reducing hours and deducting difference from last months overtime. Legal

A contract may be broken if your employer does not follow a term in the contract. You employer has broken the law according to ACAS. This is known as a breach of contract. For example, if your employer doesn't pay you in lieu of notice which you are entitled to under your contract, this would be a breach of contract.
If your employer breaks your contract, you should try and sort the matter out with them informally first.
If this doesn't work, you could try raising a grievance against your employer. There are special procedures you may need to follow if you want to take out a grievance against your employer.

I have sent you PM. Please have a look at your inbox.

Please IGNORE above post. And forward the content of the PM to me or a member of the site team, as i believe the above user is soliciting for commercial business! Any advice given by PM is against forum rules!

[gravygranules]

Re: Employer reducing hours and deducting difference from last months overtime. Legal

I've thought about it some more and had another chat with someone at work and I realise what they are doing. They are trying to make it so that each month you meet your contracted hours by taking from last months overtime. By the way it's a very large company so I doubt my immediate management is to blame. I'm sure the company pulls this rubbish across the country.

I was contract+10hrs in October and I was contract-6hrs in November. So they took 6 hours out of October which made it so I was contract+4hrs in October and contract+0hrs in November. At least this is what it seems. So, effectively, I get paid the same either way although in November with the latter they would be paying me for less than my contract which is maybe why they do it (so no one can say they didn't at least get paid for at least 30 hours a week on average). But when I do overtime I expect it to be treated as such and not as banked hours that can be used to cover the gap the following month. Just seems so wrong. I had a look in section 13 of the employment act and to be honest I have trouble fully understanding because of the way it's written.

[teaboy2]

Re: Employer reducing hours and deducting difference from last months overtime. Legal

I've thought about it some more and had another chat with someone at work and I realise what they are doing. They are trying to make it so that each month you meet your contracted hours by taking from last months overtime. By the way it's a very large company so I doubt my immediate management is to blame. I'm sure the company pulls this rubbish across the country.

I was contract+10hrs in October and I was contract-6hrs in November. So they took 6 hours out of October which made it so I was contract+4hrs in October and contract+0hrs in November. At least this is what it seems. So, effectively, I get paid the same either way although in November with the latter they would be paying me for less than my contract which is maybe why they do it (so no one can say they didn't at least get paid for at least 30 hours a week on average). But when I do overtime I expect it to be treated as such and not as banked hours that can be used to cover the gap the following month. Just seems so wrong. I had a look in section 13 of the employment act and to be honest I have trouble fully understanding because of the way it's written.

Dont worry about understanding section 13 of the employment rights act 1996, what the company is doing is wrong and unlawful, costing you what you should be paid for overtime as and when you do overtime.

Contact ACAS and inform them of the situation, or if you have a union, contact them and inform them. Either one will support you in issuing a grievance against the company for unlawful deductions and breach of contract, i.e. failure to provide contracted hours per month.

If its a big company then theirs no reason why they can not provide you your contracted hours in the first place, unless they are struggling financially. Messing about with your hours and wages like they are, is no way to run a company!