Many thanks for your understanding. Most of our colleagues suffer financial difficulties and unhappy with this. That's why I asked my question here and made legal research for this issue.

Thanks for your reply. I had already made it clear that 'the clause in our contracts says "pay monthly in arrears", definitely not "pay a month in arrears"'. The payday was not specified in our contracts. As your said, American law would not help us in the UK. I am doing legal research trying to confirm there is an implied term in employment contract that the employer shall pay salaries promptly and without unreasonable delay. It would be appreciated if anyone could found out any statuary law or common law to establish this ground.

When I do my research online, I found American law has made this point clear: "The Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, does not establish minimum paydays, but it requires employers to implement a regular payday, such as weekly, biweekly or semimonthly. The FLSA requires employers to pay employees within a reasonable time frame after the employee renders service, like by the established payday. Federal law also mandates employers to pay nonexempt employees at least the federal minimum hourly wage and overtime wages for work hours that exceed 40 for the week. If an employer fails to pay such wages promptly, the employee can file a wage claim with the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, to recover unpaid wages. Federal penalties for purposely violating federal minimum wage and overtime pay requirements include a fine of up to $10,000 and criminal prosecution." Unfortunately I can not find any English legislation on the duty of paying salaries promptly. I think there must be some rules to this effect but have no idea where are they. I made a call to ACAS helpline this morning. They just told me that a Pay Reference Periond cannot be longer than one calendar month for the purposes of the NMW. This was ridiculous.

Yes. In our case we are salaried too and the payrolls for each month were already prepared by our accountant at the end of that month or the beginning of the next month.

Thanks for your guys' reply. The clause in our contracts says "pay monthly in arrears", definitely not "pay a month in arrears". As far as I know, the common practice is the employer pay on the payday for the period from the last payday to this one. For example, if the payday is set to be 28 of each month, bosses pay salaries for the works between 29 March to 28 April. In my case, I think that it's common sense that withholding payment for 28 days shall be deem as unreasonable delay.

I have a question about my salary payment. According to the contract, my boss shall pay me monthly in arrears. The problem is he choose the end of month as pay dates to pay our salary of the last month. For example, we can't get our wages of this April until 28 of May, i.e., 28 days later. So he uses this tact withholding one moth wages of employees at any time. Is there anyone can throw a light for me?Is this practice against law?