A question about : SafeStyle UK & Employemt law help.
not sure if this is the right thread but here goes.....
I have worked for safestyle now since August last year.
I signed a contract of terms and conditions stating my rights and that i was classed as self-employed.
I have always been part-time due to the fact they cant supply enought leads to make the job worth doing without making a loss.
They expect you to sit in the office all day then go out in the evenings on leads which is what i was doing, they might send you on the odd appointment during the day but not always and they have 10+ reps per branch so getting any rare daytime leads covered was not a problem.
They have been messing me about for a while now, wages wrong, retainers not paid as promised, they dont pay minimum national wage even if you work all week but dont make a sale, in fact they take away the Ј65 basic (called a full basic in all their job ads) if you fail to work 6 days or dont make two sales a week, most reps will work 50 hours+ everyweek and most weeks before tax and paying for fuel are taking home less than Ј200 take away the costs and you struggle to make Ј50 profit.
To cope with this they rotate who earns what and who gets the cream of the leads so at least one rep a month can earn Ј1000+, what is scary is the amount of employees reps, canvass managers are earing huge amounts of money, being classed as self employeed and yet dont even know what a UTR is!!!
All jobs advertised by this company promise minimum wage and a full basic.
Over the last few months even though I have been available everyday, called in to tell them, I still have not been getting a lead every day as they are short on leads and struggling with man power on the canvas side.
Today I was called and told if I was not available full time they no longer wanted me working for them even though they still would not be able to provide me with leads all day everyday.
They employ alot of people and all of them are put on self employeed contracts, i feel this is so they can chop and change when ever they like and is part of a massive [problem] to avoid paying employeers tax on the earings of their staff, for instance all branches have a sales manager, canvass manager and an appointment confirmer, all work in the branch 6 days a week and yet all self employeed. sounds dodgy to me.
They make dockings off your wage but the inconsistencys are huge and if you ask for a written list of dockings they tell you one is not available, i put in writting two weeks ago a request for such a list and as I put it in the letter if they make these dockings then there must be a list they working from so whay cant i see a copy, two weeks later they sack me?
on the contract of employment it says that after nine months employment you will be returned your retainer,(no mention of staged payments) this was made up of 10% of all the commission made over the first nine months that they kept back. after my nine months i made a request to have it paided and was told by the then branch manager that it would be paid over four weeks. a week later that manager got sacked and the new manager said it was now 12 weeks and always had been!
I made an enquiry to head office about this and they said a memo was given out at the training course, no memos were given on the training course. I pointed out that on the contract it says if I leave the company after nine months then wait six weeks I can claim back all outstanding commision retainer and kit fund, so it seems it is quicker to get owed monies by leaving rather than staying how could this be a way of encouraging peole to stay? they had no answer for that.
I believe that the self employeed status they gave me was just away of avioding tax and the work conditions should require me to be on an employeed contract.
I am i right, please help.
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