HMRC

NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

Government names and shames retailers for breaching National Minimum Wage law

Convenience retailers were among the more than 200 companies named by the government.

Convenience retailers were among the more than 200 companies named by the government for failing to pay their lowest paid staff the minimum wage.

The 208 employers were found to have failed to pay their workers £1.2m, leaving around 12,000 workers out of pocket.

The investigations by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs found that:

Aingaran Somasuntharam, trading as Londis, Tameside, OL7, failed to pay £1,951.98 to 14 workers.

Mahmood Raja, trading as Premier Stores, Tameside, OL6, failed to pay £1,847.89 to one worker.

David Patrick, trading as DC Patrick Newsagents, Suffolk, IP19, failed to pay £565.48 to 10 workers.

The businesses have had to pay back what they owe to staff and face financial penalties of up to 200% of what was owed.

The employers had previously underpaid workers in the following ways: deductions that reduce minimum wage pay (37%), unpaid working time such as mandatory training, trial shifts or travel time (29%), failing to pay the correct rate to apprentices (16%), and not increasing NMW pay in line with government rises or paying the wrong minimum wage rate (11%).

Minister for Labour Markets, Paul Scully, commented: “We want workers to know that we’re on their side and they must be treated fairly by their employers, which is why paying the legal minimum wage should be non-negotiable for businesses.

“Today’s 208 businesses, whatever their size, should know better than to short-change hard-working employees, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.”

The government recently announced a significant rise to the National Living Wage from April 2022. This will lead to a pay rise for some of the lowest paid workers in the UK, with workers on the National Living Wage seeing a 6.6% increase to £9.50 an hour.