Retailer found to have underpaid staff £430,000
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A record 22,400 workers on the minimum wage across the UK will get millions in back pay after their employers cheated them out of wages, with listed greetings card retailer Card Factory and a football club among the Yorkshire firms named and shamed today.
The names of 239 employers found to have underpaid employees by a total of £1.44m have been published by the government.
The back pay identified by HMRC was for more workers than in any previous single naming list and has generated record fines of £1.97m.
The earliest underpayment dated back to 2011, with the most recent happening this year.
Sportswift, trading as Card Factory, headquartered in Wakefield, failed to pay more than £430,000 to 10,256 workers, with average arrears of £41.94 per worker, it has been revealed.
Other Yorkshire firms include Spirit of 1873, trading as Wakefield Trinity, which failed to pay £12,370 to 27 workers, with average arrears of £458.16 per worker, while Huddersfield Giants failed to pay £7,801.70 to 24 workers, with average arrears of £325.07 per employee.
Doncaster Rovers F.C was also named for failing to pay £1,585 to two workers, with average arrears of £792.62 per worker.
Business Minister Andrew Griffiths said: “Our priority is making sure workers know their rights and are getting the pay they worked hard for. Employers who don’t do the right thing face fines as well as being hit with the bill for backpay.
“The UK’s lowest paid workers have had the fastest wage growth in 20 years thanks to the introduction of the National Living Wage and today’s list serves as a reminder to all employers to check they are getting their workers’ pay right.”
Funding for minimum wage enforcement has more than doubled since 2015, with the government set to spend £26.3m in 2018/19.
Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage have to pay back arrears of wages to the worker at current minimum wage rates and face financial penalties of up to 200% of arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker.
