Employment Problem, Wages Owed.

[Pozidriva]

My 22 yr old daughter worked for a video/games rental chain, I shant name them, but suffice to say they're a multi-national company and probably the largest in the business, certainly in the Uk.

 

She was a supervisor and keyholder, and as such was responsible for attending the store whenever the alarm was triggered in order to allow entrance to the alarm engineer so the alarm could be reset.

She resigned from their employ giving the required period of notice, she resigned because the branch manager wouldn't authorise disbursment (disbursal ?) for a taxi on a particularly stormy night, she resigned of her own volition and whilst employed by them has never faced any disciplinary action.

 

 

She is now trying to recover money they owe her for attending these call-outs, approx £400, the problem is that her employer is disputing how many she did, they were never filled in on any timesheet, hours were worked out from a time clock when employees clocked in/out, she wasn't allowed to clock in/out when attending call-outs because that would mess up her hours (staff only being advised to clock in/out once in any 24 hours).

 

My daughter has contacted the alrm company involved in order to obtain the dates/times when they were called out, this information would back up her claim, the alarm company have been helpful but have stated that they cannot release this info to her because of the Data Protection act, obviously her ex employer could obtain this information but so far have been unable/unwilling to do so.

She has also been in touch with her mobile phone service provider in order to obtain her recieved calls records, which again, would show when and how often the alarm company called her, however T Mobile tell her they can only provide this information if a court issues a summons.

 

This has been ongoing since Sept 2008, the reason for this lengthy period is that for several months storemanagers and area managers promised to get it sorted and never bothered, she then sent a recorded delivery letter to her ex employers head office stating that if the matter wasn't resolved within 28 days she would take action via the small claims court, this at least resulted in an offer being made to her, that offer was in the sum of £175, naturally she refused it, her employers are stating that they have no way of knowing how many call outs she attended.

 

So, a few questions.

 

Does an employer have a statutory obligation to keep a record of hours worked ?

 

Is it reasonable to expect them to be able to obtain information from one of their own Sub-Contractors (the alarm company)

 

Can anyone offer absolutely any advice whatsoever ? following her refual of their offer (made via telephone) her ex employers have once again gone silent, sadly my daughter has had months of this and is obviously frustrated at trying to obtain what is legally owed to her, I might add for getting out of bed at ridiculous hours in order to carry out her duties.

All advice gratefully recieved.

Apologies for the long post, I just wanted to give as much info as possible, if anyone needs any more info I'll be happy to post it.

Phil.

Edited April 1, 2009 by Pozidriva
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[Pozidriva]

Anyone able to offer any advice ? Is anyone of the opinion that my Daughter should just press on with a small claims action ?.

 

Cheers

[flyingdoc]

Press on with the small claims action - make sure your daughter has some written record of the dates and times of the alarm call outs to take to court.

 

I suspect that they will not even bother to attend court but if they do you need to be prepared.

 

If you dont know the dates and times you can use the Civil procedure rules to request the information from the company as you are in process of taking action.