Havana DJ’s £14k ‘unpaid wages’ claim scratched out

Tuesday 30 October 2018

The result of a recent tribunal case won’t have been music to one DJ’s ears, after he was told he wasn’t entitled to nearly £14,000 in ‘unpaid wages’ for years of spinning the decks on busy bank holidays without time off in return.

Employment and Discrimination Tribunal Chair Advocate Mike Preston handed down the decision against Biko Bangs week, following a hearing in March.

It heard Mr Bangs had been a DJ and manager at Havana nightclub for nearly six years when, on Valentine’s Day 2016, he was suddenly refused entry to the club and told he was “no longer welcome.”

Until that point, he had been a shareholder and Director of Small Shores Entertainment Limited – the company behind the club – but was soon after told that he was being removed as director due to performance issues.

Pictured: Mr Bangs said he worked many busy bank holidays as a DJ at Havana nightclub.

The following year, he brought claims of unfair and wrongful dismissal to the Employment Tribunal, but these weren’t considered because the Tribunal ruled they had been filed too late. 

However, the Tribunal did agree to a hearing on whether the company still owed Mr Bangs money in the form of unpaid wages.

Mr Bangs brought a claim to the tune of £13,800, recounting that he had always worked busy bank holiday nights, and was “never given time off in lieu or paid double time.”

But the nightclub argued that wasn’t the case at all. They said he wasn’t official an employee, and was considered for all financial and administrative purposes a business owner. That didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t also be an employee, but they argued that he didn’t have a contract to prove this status.

Pictured: Mr Bangs was a business owner of Havana nightclub, while also acting as a manager and DJ.

Mr Bangs argued that he had signed one in the presence of the company’s lawyer, but the lawyer said he had no such recollection.  He added that, if Mr Bangs had signed a contract, it would have been “scanned on his system and kept on file for future reference.” 

Another member of the company said that he found a copy of a contract with Mr Bangs name on among company papers, but that it wasn’t signed.

That draft version said that an employee “working on a public holiday may take time in lieu or leave by arrangement with the management.” Even though the contract wasn’t signed, the tribunal noted that Mr Bangs himself was “management.”

They added that there was no mention of “double time” as Mr Bangs had claimed he was entitled.

 Pictured: No signed contract with Mr Bangs' name on could be found.

Aside from the fact Mr Bangs had received wage slips, Advocate Preston concluded that “everything pointed to him being a business owner” rather than employee. He added that Mr Bangs had been “involved in the business for several years without ever having raised complaint about the failure to pay him separately” for working bank holidays.

“He was part of the “management” with whom an employee would on his case have arranged for such time off or payment but yet the matter was never raised. It seemed to the Tribunal most unlikely that this situation would have been allowed to continue if indeed it had been agreed on the part of the Respondent that the Claimant should have been paid for the time that he had not taken off in lieu of work carried out on Bank Holidays,” Advocate Preston reasoned. 

He concluded: “ In the circumstances, the Tribunal finds that the claimant was not an employee and as such no award is made in his favour.” 

The full judgement, which was published yesterday, can be read here.