Martin Brewer, is a Partner with the employment team of Mills & Reeve

In the first case the employee is protected by section 13 of the Employment rights Act 1996 (ERA). This states that any deductions from a workers wages is unlawful unless authorised by the contract or by the workers written agreement to the deduction. There are a number of exceptions to this rule (see section 14 ERA) but none of these cover the circumstances you have described.

Therefore lawfully to ‘dock’ the pay as you describe would need a term in the contract as I don’t see the worker otherwise agreeing to the deduction.

The second case is more difficult. In principle this is also a contractual point. The worker has a contract which will include being paid at a particular time (this may not be written but would nevertheless be implied). To delay payment without the contractual right is a breach of contract.

The employee could stay in work and sue for the losses suffered by the delay which might not only be the pay itself (for example, as a result of the delay the employee becomes overdrawn at the bank and suffers bank charges).

Also, the employee could argue that the delay in pay is a fundamental breach of contract, resign and claim unfair dismissal. Although in this case the loss is the pay and any notice pay due to the employee.

Again therefore if you did want to achieve this a properly drafted term of the contract is the only safe way forward.
Martin can be contacted at: [email protected]

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