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In a judgment delivered on 8 June 2005, the London Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), in the case Vasquez-Guirado v Wigmore, dismissed an appeal against an employment tribunal decision to award £;16,879 to an employee who worked 132 hours each week in a hotel.
Mrs. Wigmore worked for a hotel, with duties that including preparation of breakfast, reception work and making beds. She was paid £;4.80 per hour for a 36-hour week. She lived in a room in the hotel and, other than for two hours each morning and all day Monday, she was "on call", being expected to answer the telephone at any time of the day and be available at night to handle emergencies. She could not leave the hotel while she was on-call.
After 7½ months, following the refusal of the hotel to allow her to keep cats in her room, she resigned and subsequently claimed that the employer had made unlawful deductions from her wages, under the provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996, for the additional hours she had worked or, alternatively, she had been paid, effectively, £;1.33 per hour and should be paid the difference between that and the national minimum wage at that time of £;4.50 per hour.
The employment tribunal decided that she worked 132 hours each week. The on-call hours were working time within the provisions of the Working Time Regulations 1998. She was not free to come and go as she chose and pursue her own interests. She was liable to be interrupted at any time of day or night and was expected to be the first point of contact. Although she had her own room, the purpose of her living in was so that she could be on call 24 hours a day. The provision of accommodation was not a "perk" of the job but an essential part of it.
The only change the EAT made to the employment tribunal's decision was to increase the award. The tribunal had taken the provision of the accommodation into consideration when calculating the amount of unpaid wages. The EAT reinstated that allowance as living-in was a contractual requirement. The unpaid wages and holiday pay amounted to £;16,879, all of which was subject to tax and NICs before payment.
...back to 28 July 2005
Source:
Employment Appeal Tribunal |
For Payroll and Human Resource Professionals
