The Truck Acts were repealed by the Wages Act 1986, and later superseded by the Employment Rights Act 1996. Sections 13-27 Employment Rights Act 1996 cover unlawful deductions from wages and Sections 17-22 specifically cover the exceptions which allow an employer to deduct wages to cover stock or cash shortages from an employee engaged in retail work.

 

A robbery or other criminal act where the employee could not be accused of acting without due diligence would be a different matter and the employer should seek to recover those losses through Police action and insurance.

This is the reversal of previously won rights!

Considering retail always has been at the bottom of the pile where rights working conditions and wages are concerned this is quite scandalous and I am sure this deduction right must be abused by the many unscrupulous retailers.... What is to stop them taking the money themselves then blaming the staff? Is this a dubious way around paying the minimum wage?

I note who was in government when these Acts were passed, but also the lack of reversal by the next bunch!

Thank you for the info, pity the public sit by and let this kind of thing happen.....

"Critics have previously compared the laws to the regime of President Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who has forced white people from their land through violence and intimidation."

The lairds or absentee land owners will not be shot or see their wives raped..... it must be remembered just how these people got their vast estates in the first place.... the clearances and enclosure of the land involved more of the Mugabe type tactics that the 2003 act!! These people will get a considerable payment for the land that is taken into community ownership....

When did it become legal to deduct losses from an employee’s wages? It certainly has not always been the case. When such an issue arose the “truck acts” were always sited.

A number of years ago there was a chain of petrol stations who were deducting all losses from employees, including shop lifting and drive aways. These people were in a position that each week they were deeper in debt and no wages, it was quite a scandal at the time (i think Ester Ransom covered it on “Thats Life”). It was also the case that if an employer put such a clause in a contract, that to could be over ridden by the unfair contracts act. Do building society and bank staff have to pay back after a robbery? There cash would be short?