Schoolgirl compensated after being underpaid for first ever job

Wednesday 23 October 2019

A Gorey restaurant has been ordered to pay £270 to a local schoolgirl, who was denied pay slips and her full wages in her first ever job.

The teen filed a case with the Employment Tribunal in July 2019, claiming that in the two months she had worked at the Vault, a bar and restaurant in Gorey, she had been paid less than what had been agreed and was neither given any breaks or pay slips.

The rest period claim was later dropped as the Tribunal Deputy Chairman, Michael Salter, felt it was not precise enough to make a judgment.

The teen had started working at the Vault in March 2019, as she wanted a part-time job while at school. She worked an average of 10 hours a week - mainly shifts at the weekend - for which she had been told she would be paid £9 an hour.

Pictured: The teen had to wait over two months to get her first pay.

After two months of work, she still hadn’t been paid and asked managers about the delay. When she eventually received her pay, it didn't reflect the hours she had worked or the agreed rate of pay.

She went back to the managers and received a further payment, which still did not add up to what she was owed.  

The teen requested a copy of her pay statements – which employers are legally obliged to provide to all employees “at or before the time at which any payment of wages” is made – to understand how her pay had been calculated. The employer neither provided the statements nor an explanation on the calculation.

Following these enquiries, the Vault stopped offering shifts to the girl. Along with her parents, she contacted the managers to obtain clarification on the payment of the wages but received not responses. She therefore took her claims to the Employment Tribunal in July 2019, which the Vault did not defend. 

Pictured: The teen filed a claim with the Employment Tribunal in July.

In an email sent to the Tribunal in August, one of the managers said the Vault would not be able to attend the Case Management Hearing that was to be held five days later, without providing an explanation for what Mr Salter described as “lack of engagement” with the Tribunal process. 

They however agreed to pay the wage shortfall to the teen if she provided her bank details. Although she did so, the teen still hadn't received any payment by the time Mr Slater considered compensation in mid-September.

The Deputy Chairman concluded that the Vault had failed to provide “itemised payslips”, adding he did not consider anything would be gained by ordering them to provide them as the teen no longer worked there. 

Pictured: The Tribunal Deputy Chairman concluded the Vault had failed to provide " provide “itemized payslips."

“I consider that as the Respondent has, despite requests, not provided payslips to the Claimant either during her employment or afterwards, and still has failed with this minimal, yet important, task imposed on all employers, it is appropriate for me to exercise my discretion and order the Respondent to pay to the Claimant a sum of money,” he wrote in his judgment.

He concluded that asking the Vault to pay compensation would be “punitive in nature” and “provide a sanction” on employers to provide their employees with payslips, something he described as “a minimal obligation".

Mr Salter noted that the young girl had to challenge her employer several times over her wages and had to contact the General Manager after she had stopped working at the Vault.

Pictured: The Vault will have to pay the girl £270, the equivalent of three weeks of pay.

Despite this, the girl “got no response” and had to start Tribunal proceedings “to obtain her rightfully owed pay” - something which prompted Mr Salter to draw conclusions as to the Vault’s approach “to regulatory requirements".

He therefore concluded that he could order the highest possible level of compensation for what he described as “an unexplained, serious and sustained default”, and ordered that the girl be awarded the equivalent of three weeks’ pay: £270.