Top Scottish football club among “named and shamed” minimum wage offenders

Despite adults over the age of 25 having to be legally paid at least £7.83 per hour, the report showed £1.44m in back pay has been identified for 22,400 UK workers, with the employers fined additional £1.97m for their failings.

The earliest underpayment dated back to 2011, with the most recent happening this year (2018).

Dundee Football Club was named among the sports clubs highly represented in the list of law-breakers.

The Den Park club was named and shamed along with Bristol City, Doncaster Rovers, Port Vale and Northampton Town – for together underpaying 150 workers.

At Dundee, four employees had arrears averaging £533 (coming to a total of £2,134) between January 2015 and May 2016.

A Dundee Football Club spokesman said four players had been underpaid as a result of administrative shortcomings in its payroll process. The players had since had the cash made up to them in a subsequent salary.

Meanwhile., the Super League rugby club Huddersfield Giants underpaid 24 workers by £7,800.

And county cricket clubs Durham, Derbyshire and Sussex also underpaid staff, as did Newcastle Falcons, the Premiership rugby team. Bristol City fell foul because it failed to pay some of its academy players for travel time to away fixtures.

The Odeon cinema chain and the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (Naafi) were also among the offenders identified.

The Scottish based company with the highest wages shortfall was Orkney and Shetland Charters, a firm specialising in boat trips. Five employees working for Orkney and Shetland Charters were in arrears to the tune of more than £4,000 each between 2015 and 2017.

The research, which was done using HMRC data, said Orkney and Shetland Charters had arrears totalling £20,148. A representative of the company has acknowledged the presence of the firm on the list but did not comment further.

The top 5 reasons for National Minimum and Living Wage underpayments in this round were:

The policy of naming and shaming offenders employers who have fallen foul of minimum wage laws is now in its fifth year.

So far it has identified £10.8 million in back pay for around 90,000 workers, with more than 1,900 employers fined a total of £8.4 million.

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 per cent of arrears, capped at £20,000 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.”

The complete list of shamed firms can be accessed here