Tribunal awards shop worker £600

Thursday 01 August 2019

An ex-shop supervisor, who claimed she wasn't properly paid for working on Christmas and Boxing Day among other allegations against her former employer, has won her case for compensation.

Mrs R Norman was awarded a total of £624.29 after she brought her wage dispute with Trinity Village Stores Limited to the Employment Tribunal.

The ex-supervisor, who worked at the company from its opening in November 2016 until its closure two years later, had made claims for unpaid annual leave, unpaid bank holiday pay, unpaid wages and failure to provide itemised pay statements, as well as failures to pay the minimum wage and to give her enough rest. 

Aside from the claim for unpaid wages, the business, represented by Advocate Giles Emmanuel, denied all of the allegations.

Pictured: The shop is located on Rue Es Picots in Trinity.

The shop had two directors, one of which - Mrs Pallot - was responsible for running the business and liaising with staff. Mrs Norman had a good working relationship with her, as the Tribunal Chair, Mrs Hilary Griffin, noted from their email correspondence.

“[Mrs Norman] enjoyed her job and the correspondence showed that Mrs Pallot valued [Mrs Norman]’s hard work and dedication to the Shop," the Chair stated in her recently-published judgment.

Mrs Norman said she was owed untaken holiday day for 2016 as she had been unable to take any leave because there was no opportunity for her to do so. While Mrs Pallot had agreed to pay her in lieu, the Tribunal concluded Mrs Norman had never received any payment and ordered the shop to pay £29.52. 

The Tribunal found Mrs Norman was also entitled to a total of £105.05 for unpaid bank holiday pay on Boxing Day in 2016, Christmas Day 2017, as well as Good Friday and Easter Monday last year.

Pictured: Mrs Norman said she didn't receive detailed pay statements for eight months.

Mrs Norman also claimed that, from May 2018 until the sale of the shop, she did not receive any detailed pay statements - something denied by Mrs Pallot, who admitted that some statements were occasionally “delayed”, but “never intentionally withheld.”

But the Tribunal Chair found in Mrs Norman's favour, noting that Mrs Pallot's administration had been "somewhat chaotic", and therefore ordered that £150.12 be paid to Mrs Norman in compensation. 

In response to Mrs Norman's argument that she had worked additional hours that were not paid, Mrs Griffin noted that the employee had been warned that, due to budgeting constraints, her hours were capped at 35 per week, meaning that she could not routinely work overtime. 

The Tribunal Chair did not find evidence of Mrs Norman being paid under the minimum wage, as she had claimed, nor did she agree that Mrs Norman had missed out on 24-hour periods of rest she was entitled to on five separate occasions.

Pictured: The shop supervisor claimed she did not have enough rest on several occasions.

During the hearing, Mrs Norman acknowledged there had in fact only been two occasions when this had happened, but asserted that on other occasions, she did not have a “full day” off. 

However, Mrs Griffin noted that the Employment Law does not specify a rest period must span an entire day - only that the employer must give 24 hours of uninterrupted rest. 

Mrs Pallot said that it was a “very rare occurrence” for Mrs Norman not to have an appropriate rest period, explaining that it only happened as a result of unexpected circumstances, such as staff sickness, bereavement and, in one case, a criminal case against an employee’s partner. 

Mrs Griffin concluded Mrs Pallot hadn’t deliberately arranged the rota to prevent Mrs Norman from taking a rest period. “There was no evidence to suggest that the Respondent forced the Claimant to work the additional hours. Nor was there any evidence to suggest that the Claimant requested that she be allowed a rest period which was then refused by the Respondent,” Mrs Griffin wrote.

In total, Mrs Norman was awarded £624.29.