Underpaid salary

[angryweasel]

Hi, I hope someone can help and shed some light / advise how best to proceed. I have just received my monthly pay slip through the post and have been paid the entire month as SSP. Thing is, I've not been off work at all!.

Money has been extremely tight since cost cutting measures by the Company left me on a four day week last year, we're paid minimum wage anyway so live from pay-day to pay-day at the best of times. This month I have £339 to last five weeks.

 

Now, assuming I can get them to realise their mistake when I contact them on Monday (1st opportunity) how long would be reasonable for them to pay me the balance? Usually when pay is short (not unusual for them to get it wrong) it's a case of waiting until the next payday. I have circumstances that mean certain bills MUST be paid next week to avoid my whole financial situation imploding,

 

Any pointers on how best to proceed would be welcomed

[Sidewinder]

Hi. Firstly, don't go in all guns blazing....yet. This should be an error which is easy to correct. There is no earthly reason why the employer cannot make a CHAPS payment for the difference. This will get the money into your account the same day. It will cost them a fee, but hey, it is their mistake. You may also be prepared to accept cash or a cheque (if you are able to wait for it to clear).

 

It would most certainly not be reasonable to expect you to wait another month, and whilst there is a need to keep calm, you will also need to stress that you can't afford to wait, and have essential bills to pay, and that you will hold them responsible for any charges incurred. You need an answer within hours, not days and an assurance that the money will be forthcoming.

 

If they don't play ball, then there are legal threats that you can make regarding unlawful deductions etc, but that won't necessarily hurry things up.

[angryweasel]

Thanks for the very quick and helpful reply. Salary payments are one side that falls flat in the Company. my first hurdle is finding who to speak to! My line manager is on annual leave and the HR dept. have said previously that they do not deal with pay!

 

Will keep this updated - if I have the same trouble as last time it could have some legs........

[Sidewinder]

Please do. Presumably somebody has responsibility for the business and he has to take responsibility and action as appropriate. I was always of the opinion that whatever you do in business, don't mess with the workers' wages!

 

An underpayment can represent an Unlawful Deduction from wages, and you could take that to an Employment Tribunal which would cost them considerably more than the £25 or so than a same day CHAPS payment!

[angryweasel]

Hmmmm....... I've been promised a CHAPS payment either today or tomorrow, dependent on when the "paperwork" gets processed.

 

Apparently the company are doing a nationwide sweep on sickness absences that have not been previously notified by line management and mine showed that I had been absent form 16/7/10 to 16/8/10. I explained that I have not had a single day's sickness all year! HR have accepted that I should be paid, but will check with my line manager who was on leave today.

 

Strange thing is, I tried to contact 4 managers today from mine and bordering areas and all were on leave today, according to answer phones - inc. HR manager.

 

It doesn't seem right to collect "overpayments" like this without warning - more than a month's salary deducted, then SSP added plus a rebate of tax.

 

My paranoid side says "clandestine management meetings and desperate attempts to claw in payroll money" It's a large, national company with predominantly minimum wage employees - this was the first run of payroll since NMW increased. Hope it is just paranoia.

 

Must remember to have any reference to receiving SSP payments made to me - never can tell when it may be needed.

[sillygirl1]

They are only allowed to collect a certain percentage for overpayments, not deduct the whole lot in one go.

[angryweasel]

Since last post the remainder of my salary has been sent to my account.......Yipeee.

[SarEl]

They are only allowed to collect a certain percentage for overpayments, not deduct the whole lot in one go.

 

Sorry - this is not correct. The law makes no stipulation as to the amount or percentage of a salary that can be reclaimed if an overpayment has been made. Not relevant in this case, since no overpayment had been made - but still incorrect.

[Sidewinder]

Since last post the remainder of my salary has been sent to my account.......Yipeee.

 

Good for you - hopefully they have corrected the error which led to the wrong payment in the first place.

[honeybee13]

I'm pleased you got this sorted. Don't forget, if you were subject extra bank charges and the like through being paid late, you should be able to reclaim those from the employer. And keep a close eye on the payslips from now on .

 

My best, HB

[angryweasel]

Bit of a hiccup this month. On the morning of payday - nothing in the account colleague also not paid.Now, we start work 3 hours before the office (couple of hundred miles away) and my line manager (who we see about once a week) start so I phoned a colleage at another site who at this time hadn't checked his account. Left an answerphone message for my manager saying "XXXX and I are wondering if there's a reason we havn't been paid yet" One hour later, phoned HR and was told there was a "glitch" with the payroll system, nobody had been paid nationally and manual payments would be made later that day, once the banks opened"

 

An hour after that my colleage at the other site called me to say his manager had phoned him to tell him the imfo. I had from HR. Still no contact from my manager. I checked and a "TT" payment bhad been made - good. all sorted?

 

An hour or so later, our manager comes in and bollocks us for "making a fuss" and leaving "arsy" messages on his phone - the message was as above, no more, no less. and for being overheard by the clients as we discussed it.

 

Payslip arrived today (is always a day or two after being paid) and mine is impossible to fathom.

It still shows an accumulation of over £300 SSP.

 

When I received the balance of salary last month, it was an amount which, when added to the "ssp" payment and resulting tax rebate I received was exactly equal to a normal month's salary - seems fair.

 

To "balance the books" I guess, I received my months salary and a "salary adjustment" that was equal to the amount last month's gross salary was short- considerably more than the net amount received last month (I had assumed tax and NI had been deducted last month as I actually received, in total, the exact amount of a usual month's net salary)

This has led to me paying a rather heavy tax/NI amount this month. The "pay advance" (bloody cheek calling it that!!!) from last month was then taken off as a deduction with this month's tax/NI - should this have been deducted from gross wage pre-tax? as I assume I have already paid tax/NI on it so as to arrive at a total net sum last month?

 

The amount of money isn't massive - works out though to about 4% of net salary lost this month.

 

Has this been worked out correctly? and surely my cumulative pay statement this month should not show £300 SSP ? Could anyone tell me if I will have been deemed to have received this on top of my "pay to date" as shown on payslip?

[honeybee13]

Hello again. This is quite a complicated question and best answered by a payroll person. I don't think we have one around at the moment. Have you spoken to whoever deals with payroll? They are generally the right people to explain it to you.

 

I would start by speaking to them.

 

My best, HB

[angryweasel]

Thanks,HB

 

I've left a request with my manager to clarify how the various deductions have been arrived at but the way it works from past experience is that I contact my manager (I'm on a 4 day week these days so not in today - so answerphone's the best I can get) who then contacts HR for referral to our "payroll" dept who in turn contact the 3rd party company who actually process the payroll................. what a rigmaroll. Each of these seem to take such a request as a heinous personal attack and IF I get an answer it will be passed down verbally through the same chain. Probably towards the end of next week I'll get my first response which most likely will be "why do you want to know?"

At the end of the following week I'll most likely get a curt reply of "It's correct"

By the end of the month I'll most likely give up in frustration!!!!! (can you tell how valued us employees feel? minimum wage, IMO less than legal minimum holiday entitlement and no back-up)

 

If I can find out if there is actually any detriment to me in having the SSP wrongly recorded (is it taken as having been paid on top of cumulative income which may affect my son's Uni funding) I can decide whether it's worth persuing in any way. I have bitter memories of my son losing an extra £10 per week EMA because my years earnings were £4 above a certain threshold - I won't risk his student bursary for earnings I've not received. I can live with the slight financial loss this month as we do have some "give and take" at local level.

[honeybee13]

Hello again. Is there a reason why you have to go through this chain? Are you allowed to contact the payroll agency or the person who gives them information. I've always gone direct to payroll in the past, but in your organisation it could be different.

 

My best, HB

[angryweasel]

Must follow the chain of command! I wouldn't even have the HR number if I hadn't recently volunteered to sit on a new "employees forum" . I have a meeting fot this in the new year so can bend the MDs ear then if I get no joy, now that's jumping chain of command. (I'm not sure that some of my managers are too happy that I have taken this on...)

 

I don't wish to upset local management by not following procedure as we actually have a good relationship. I must admit to being concerned for the stability of the company - and at least I'm in a job - which makes me more fortunate than many at present. Showing a deduction of £800+ for "unauthorised abscence" and £300+ SSP will not reflect well on redundancy scoring if we go down that road again.

 

The original mistake was made by my manager putting the abscence in my name, instead of the absent employee's, who was the next line down on the spreadsheet. Easily done and difficult to correct, it would seem.