employer withholding overtime payment

[mrstigerstripes]

Hi there,

 

wondering if anyone can give me some advice on an issue I have at the moment

I have been told today that I will not receive my overtime pay from july in my august pay due to a mistake made by my regional manager and will now receive it in September instead

 

my question is can my employer withhold this pay for another month

they are saying that nothing can be done as the cut off time for pay has passed

but bear in mind that today is the 16th and I don't get paid until the 28th

I find it hard to believe that this cannot be rectified in time for pay day

 

any advice anyone can offer will be much appreciated

[Emmzzi]

what does your contract say about when things will be paid?

[mrstigerstripes]

Hi thanks for your response

Contract doesn't state when overtime will be paid

under pay section it says " salary will be paid in arrears on 28th each month"

and under overtime section just basically says "you may be required to do overtime on occasion, overt time will be paid at basic rate up to 37.5 hours and time and a half for any hours thereafter"

so does this mean they can pick and choose when to pay it as they have not stated when they will pay it

[Emmzzi]

Well, they'd need to pay within a "reasonable time", but it does mean you cant really insist on a set date.

[mrstigerstripes]

thank you for replying

what would be considered a reasonable amount of time?

I worked the overtime in july and would ordinarily receive the payment for this at the end of august but because of somebody making a mistake will now not receive it until end of September, to wait that long sounds unreasonable to me

i have incurred extra expenses to work this overtime, extra travel costs, lunch costs etc

i have also worked a lot of overtime in august which i should receive in september

also payday is still 11 days away, surely that would be enough time for a company to rectify a problem like this

[Emmzzi]

there is no legal definition of reasonable, sadly

[Sidewinder]

You could lodge a grievance, and may even be able to make a case (tentatively) that the failure to pay the overtime represents an unlawful deduction, however the net result of that might well be that any future overtime is in short supply.

 

Probably best to put this down to a rather annoying error on this occasion unless it starts to become a regular problem