Backroom Staff Salary Issues

[hlane17]

I'm no employment contract expert, but I'm pretty sure downing tools having not been paid is breach of contract and therefore your employer can feel free to sack you for gross misconduct.

Saves on paying out redundancies at least...

This must surely be a joke?

Not paying your employees is also a breach of contract and likely a more egregious one so absolutely no leg to stand on for the Club from a legal standpoint.

It remains totally ****ing disgraceful as such.

 

[Smiffy]

The worrying thing is, this is just scratching the surface on the real goings on behind the scenes. I for one hope more light is shed on whats really happening in the coming weeks...

I'm informed that allegedly some staff members in recent weeks have even had to purchase water bottles for the players and detergent to wash the kits, out of their own pockets. No I am not joking.

The truth needs to come out and appropriate action (Whatever that may be) taken by the fanbase in due course.

 

[hlane17]

The worrying thing is, this is just scratching the surface on the real goings on behind the scenes. I for one hope more light is shed on whats really happening in the coming weeks...

I'm informed that allegedly some staff members in recent weeks have even had to purchase water bottles for the players and detergent to wash the kits, out of their own pockets. No I am not joking.

The truth needs to come out and appropriate action (Whatever that may be) taken by the fanbase in due course.

If we're at this point then surely we need administration ASAP and a forced sale. No idea how it could be triggered though.

 

[Crawliano]

This must surely be a joke?

Not paying your employees is also a breach of contract so absolutely no leg to stand on for the Club from a legal standpoint.

It remains totally ****ing disgraceful as such.

I'm not joking at all. My wife's been through two situations where cash flow became a problem, they were told by HR that if they refused to work they basically were breaching contract. It's a bit of a two way street. Free to walk, but also free to be sacked for not doing your contracted work.

Not saying that this is acceptable at all, not all of us are sitting on a few months wages in reserve and empty credit cards for these type of situations occurring. I'd hate to be in some people's shoes at the club right now.

 

[Supershrimper]

I'm no employment contract expert, but I'm pretty sure downing tools having not been paid is breach of contract and therefore your employer can feel free to sack you for gross misconduct.

Saves on paying out redundancies at least...

Failure to pay wages for work done counts, in law, as an unauthorised deduction from wages. If the matter cannot be resolved, you are entitled to make a claim to an employment tribunal.

Failure to pay wages – in full and on time – is also a fundamental breach of the employment contract.

The first step, before bringing any tribunal claim, is to complete an Acas Early Conciliation Notification Form. Acas early conciliation is free of charge (Music to Rons ears)

 

[hlane17]

I'm not joking at all. My wife's been through two situations where cash flow became a problem, they were told by HR that if they refused to work they basically were breaching contract. It's a bit of a two way street. Free to walk, but also free to be sacked for not doing your contracted work.

Not saying that this is acceptable at all, not all of us are sitting on a few months wages in reserve and empty credit cards for these type of situations occurring. I'd hate to be in some people's shoes at the club right now.

Wow. Those companies were most definitely breaching contract laws and employment laws in that case, they have no right to be holding their employees hostage to their owed wages like that. Those HR employees would be sacked in any decent business.

 

[Crawliano]

Failure to pay wages for work done counts, in law, as an unauthorised deduction from wages. If the matter cannot be resolved, you are entitled to make a claim to an employment tribunal.

Failure to pay wages – in full and on time – is also a fundamental breach of the employment contract.

The first step, before bringing any tribunal claim, is to complete an Acas Early Conciliation Notification Form. Acas early conciliation is free of charge (Music to Rons ears)

Like I said, two way street. Yes the employer have breached their contract and you're within your rights. But you go breaching your contract as well and it's nullified essentially.

 

[Crawliano]

Wow. Those companies were most definitely breaching contract laws and employment laws in that case, they have no right to be holding their employees hostage to their owed wages like that. Those HR employees would be sacked in any decent business.

If there's no money to pay, there's no money. They're asking you to work while they resolve it, if you then decide to breach your contract then they ultimately can do what they want. Likewise, if your employer has breached your agreement, they've breached and you're free to walk.

 

[hlane17]

Like I said, two way street. Yes the employer have breached their contract and you're within your rights. But you go breaching your contract as well and it's nullified essentially.

From my legal knowledge in most cases arbitration, tribunals and courts have all swayed in favour of the employees.

I would like to think the club doesn't want to incur costly legal fees contesting such issues if they dismissed staff and instead pay up what is owed to our hardworking office staff.

 

[Crawliano]

From my legal knowledge in most cases arbitration, tribunals and courts have all swayed in favour of the employees.

I would like to think the club doesn't want to incur costly legal fees contesting such issues and instead pay up what is owed to our hardworking staff.

Only thing there though is that most companies are happy to hedge their bets and assume that a 21 year old is just going to chalk it up as bad experience and not bother with the process knowing that they become seen as a bad apple for dragging an employer through a tribunal etc.

I was only mentioning tongue in cheek that this hypothetically could happen. The moral side of this sucks big time. I just hope it can resolve somehow sometime soon.

 

[Supershrimper]

Like I said, two way street. Yes the employer have breached their contract and you're within your rights. But you go breaching your contract as well and it's nullified essentially.

Technically yes. You would hope that the employees would have sought legal advice (available from Citizens advice for free) or even completed a quick google and they would have advised these steps

• Speak with your employer in the first instance
• Speak with any trade union you might be in
• Raise a formal grievance (written letter, or email)
• If this fails, move to Acas completing an Early Concilation Notification Form
• Last step is an employment tribunal, but the deadline for applying must be within 3 months (less 1 day) from when the monies were due.

 

[hlane17]

Only thing there though is that most companies are happy to hedge their bets and assume that a 21 year old is just going to chalk it up as bad experience and not bother with the process knowing that they become seen as a bad apple for dragging an employer through a tribunal etc.

I was only mentioning tongue in cheek that this hypothetically could happen. The moral side of this sucks big time. I just hope it can resolve somehow sometime soon.

I think if this is a mass staff walkout then there's very little the club can do, especially if some are fed up and wish to take proper action starting through ACAS. You're right that this needs resolving soon, as soon as possible.

I love SUFC as a football club but I'm getting very very close to my final straw. I totally support all protests that I'm sure will be coming. Regular non-payment of staff is simply unacceptable.

 

[Blue43]

I’m afraid to say that a lot of our fan base have to take some responsibility here.

For the past few years Martin has run the club into the ground and the signs have been clear to see that it was only going one way under his leadership. This hasn’t been the first, second or even 15th time that staff haven’t been laid not to mention the transfer embargo’s every season along with the winding up orders.

And yet a lot of fans have just sat back and actually moaned about some groups attempts at protests and said what good will they do, who else will but us, we’re stuck with Ron.

Well there has been a lot of interests from various parties wanting to buy the club but Ron won’t entertain it cos he would rather see the club suffer just so he gets his end pot of gold, that’s all he cares about.

Oldham, Charlton and Blackpool all managed to force their owners into selling the club yet most of our fans won’t do anything.

I don’t know of another club in this country that the fans would have just sat back and done nothing and watch the killing of our club happen before their very eyes.

Fans need to grow a set of balls and fight for their club before it’s too late.

Martin must go and fan unity and power can achieve a lot. We have seen that at other clubs!

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Humour me, but why can’t Ron sell the club before the stadium is built?

It would be a complicated deal I guess but if someone, or a group, came in and agreed to buy the assets of the football playing side now, agree to pay a sensible rent on RH in the meantime, agree a price to buy Fossetts Stadium (or rent if need be) when built…… why can’t that be done?

Ron still gets his money back via property sales, and Ron is gone from the club asap.

What am I missing?

Presumably because our esteemed Chairman thinks he'll realise a bigger profit if he can wait for FF to be be built.

 

[RHB]

I'm no employment contract expert, but I'm pretty sure downing tools having not been paid is breach of contract and therefore your employer can feel free to sack you for gross misconduct.

Saves on paying out redundancies at least...

Rubbish publicity though, and the club don't need to much more of that. There is no doubt in my mind that if the money was there staff would have been paid but it really does sound like the pot is empty for the moment. So you stop paying playing staff and embargo happens again.

 

[nevereatwhitesnow]

I’m afraid to say that a lot of our fan base have to take some responsibility here.

For the past few years Martin has run the club into the ground and the signs have been clear to see that it was only going one way under his leadership. This hasn’t been the first, second or even 15th time that staff haven’t been laid not to mention the transfer embargo’s every season along with the winding up orders.

And yet a lot of fans have just sat back and actually moaned about some groups attempts at protests and said what good will they do, who else will but us, we’re stuck with Ron.

Well there has been a lot of interests from various parties wanting to buy the club but Ron won’t entertain it cos he would rather see the club suffer just so he gets his end pot of gold, that’s all he cares about.

Oldham, Charlton and Blackpool all managed to force their owners into selling the club yet most of our fans won’t do anything.

I don’t know of another club in this country that the fans would have just sat back and done nothing and watch the killing of our club happen before their very eyes.

Fans need to grow a set of balls and fight for their club before it’s too late.

Martin must go and fan unity and power can achieve a lot. We have seen that at other clubs!

Even worse was a club legend was deployed to request that all protests stopped with assurances of transparency and stability

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Is this a symptom of being a professional club carrying a league club structure into non-league?

As has been mentioned before Wrexham have made some of their former volunteers into paid employees, if the clubs pockets aren't deep enough should we look at going the other way.

In fact would we as a fan base be happy if me became a semi professional outfit to become sustainable?

The National League is almost entirely full time. It’s an outdated view to consider it a semi-pro league.

. I don’t care if a pension fund is based in Monaco, Curaçao, the Antarctic or the moon. No pension fund trustee is going to be going within ten miles of unacceptable risk with no conceivable revenue stream.

There’s lots in your post I don’t necessarily disagree with but you have completely misunderstood the pension fund’s involvement. They wouldn’t be interested/involved in the football side of things, they’d only be involved in the property development side of things and the flats present a very real opportunity for a consistent revenue stream.

 

[North Banker]

I hope the staff affected are in a union. The club will no doubt put (implicit or explicit) pressure on them to keep quiet and not challenge this, and they'll need good advice.

In terms of how we can support them, ideally someone like the Shrimpers Trust might be able to put up a pot of money that the staff can claim out of, with a friendly invitation to pay it back if/when the wages are paid. But I can appreciate that the ST might be hesitant to part with money in case Ron never pays, or indeed becomes reliant on the ST as a backstop.

Otherwise, if this is still going on come the next home game, perhaps we need a bumper Fans Supporting Foodbanks collection to gather support for the staff. (Which would, if nothing else, drive home quite what a miserable situation this is.)

 

[TrueBlue]

What makes this situation even more infuriating is that we have CREDIBLE prospective buyers out there for this club! It’s not like Ron is staying because he has no way to get shot of us, he’s staying because he has gambled the proverbial house on the new stadium and back himself into a corner.
ACCEPT YOU CANT MAKE THIS WORK!!!

For the love of god Ron at least sit down with those that are serious and have serious backing to buy and or invest in this club, ADMIT YOU CANT DONT THIS ALONE.

If you want for once to do the right thing for this club and to end with a sliver of credibility then sell before you drag us into oblivion.

 

[Mr Browns Ghost]

A question do you mean all staff or some staff have not been paid? Clearly some staff haven’t.
How can you possibly know that no staff have agreed a deferral- do you work in the finance team?
Personally I struggle with the idea the Tom would allow a statement to go out was “lies” as you state…

Brilliant I’ve followed a few of your posts where you seem to mock those that have a real factual and valid point and to back those of an alleged guttersnake with the morals of a rat