Employees appealed against decisions that their employer had not made unlawful deductions from their wages. The company had unilaterally reduced the rate of overtime pay.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
Mummery J P said: ‘the reason why the Industrial Tribunal erred in law was that it misconstrued the provisions of the Wages Act 1986 and the decisions on it as drawing a distinction between a deduction from wages and a reduction in wages. That is a false antithesis. On a proper analysis of the provisions of the 1986 Act and their application to the facts of this case the Tribunal could only have come to one conclusion: deductions were made and were unauthorised.’
Judges:
Mummery J P
Citations:
[1994] IRLR 536, [1994] UKEAT 1050 – 93 – 1305
Links:
Statutes:
Citing:
Cited – Rigby v Ferodo Ltd HL 1988
The House considered a claim for constructive dismissal where the employer had changed the terms of the employment contract by unilaterally imposing a pay cut.
Held: It was possible for an employee to continue to work under protest as to the . .
Cited – Delaney v Staples CA 1991
Any failure by an employer to pay any amount of wages properly payable to an employee amounts to a deduction from his wages for the purposes of section 7. The basic object of the 1986 Act is ‘to see that workers receive their wages in full at the . .
Cited by:
Applied – John Dickie Homes Ltd v Jones EAT 3-Sep-2001
The employers had employed bricklayers as self-employed sub-contractors. They changed them over to employees, reducing pay to allow for the additional costs of employing them. The claimant had worked for them under the old system, and returned after . .
Cited – New Century Cleaning Co Ltd v Church CA 26-Mar-1999
The employer had withheld ten per cent of the claimant’s wages, Employees worked in teams cleaning windows in office blocks. The team agreed how the fee for the block would be divided. The employer reduced its fees to customers, and accordingly the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 07 June 2022; Ref: scu.181099