Oil reached highs of 140 $ per barrel and dropped to lows of 24 $ per barrel (chart below is monthly, not daily prices). Millions of people were made redundant, projects were stopped, many companies went bankrupted and the one who remained developed a cut-throat attitude.
This has lead to survivor syndrome for the people in the industry who can find work. They think they are lucky to have a job, just because so many do. If the payment terms and conditions where reasonable and fair I would agree, in many instances they are not and companies have used the opportunity to mistreat and even abuse their positions of power over the employee. So I decided to answer my brother's call for help when he told me his ex-employer was bringing him to court for an "overpayment" they made to him.
My brother is a rigger, slinger and a banks man i.e. his lives heavy things big and small on, around and off a platform in the very dangerous north sea offshore environment for 12 hours per day. His pay is ok in the context of the average salary but the average person does not have to spend 21 days in a prison 300 miles into the ocean, working in winds and sea conditions which can and does kill or injure people on a regular basis.
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He was offered temporary employment by a large company, so he accepted. They asked him to do some trade testing and training which he did prior to going offshore. They said that it was a condition precedent to his employment that he pass the training which he did. However, when the project manager has someone he already knew become available for the position they told my brother he was no longer required, so they said don't bother turning up for work.
They had paid him for one month during the training and travel time and expense. He got paid £1,490 for 3 weeks work and now they wanted it back. My brother rang me concerned about the company stating that they would bring legal action against him to recover the debt. Then he said, "Brother, I worked for that money, why do I have to pay it back?". Knowing a bit about UK employment law I started out to investigate and help write a letter for the company, then a second, then a third and then finally the following, which has gone without response.
"Dear #####,
You may or may not be aware that my employment was offered and accepted as a contract of service [employee] not contract for service [limited company]. This means you and or the Company are not allowed to force me into working for free. Thus if follows that it may even by that the Company has created an offence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, that is to say securing my services by deception.
Never did I receive my notice of termination, nor did I ever received confirmation of failing to attend or not successfully complete any testing. The fact remains up until I terminated my own employment due to lack of payment I was employed by the Company. Hence it remains that no overpayment has occurred, to the contrary, an underpayment has occurred. For illustration purposes and your information, the following calculation demonstrates the outstanding and long over monies.
Cat B Standby RR 56 hours £19.31 rate £1,081 Weekly
19 Weeks (Standby)
2 Weeks (Holiday)
£22,708 Total
This is an unfortunate occurrence and it was brought about by no fault of my own, it was the sole cause of the Company. I note that under clause 20.5 there is no mutual obligation of the Company to notify the employee of an underpayment, rather it seeks only to create a positive obligation to recover overpayments.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned, the Company have created the following breaches of my contract for employment:
- Payment terms were weekly, however, I got paid monthly
- Payment for holidays is an entitlement, no payment received
- Notice period of 1 week due, did not receive notice or get paid for my notice period
- Did not get automatically enrolled in the relevant Company pension scheme or receive an opt-out letter
Under Clause 8 of the Contract of Employment, is it still possible to raise a grievance or shall I be required to notify the relevant Employment Tribunal so as to receive resolution and satisfaction?
Your prompt and helpful assistance on closing these matters would be much appreciated.
Best regards,
######"
The nice thing is that he has now, with a little bit of help went from a position of being very worried about legal action being taken by the company to pursue a debt of £1,490 to them owing him £22,708. Without specifically laying out all the points, what the letter does is highlight the failing in their procedures in dealing with employees, they treat them as limited companies, this treatment is not correct and is a breach of the UK employment laws. He is testing this and if he needs to go to the Employment Tribunal I think he will win.
It nice to help and feel like you can improve someone position, espically a brothers, I will keep you post on the outcome. Please upvote, comment and following :)