Blues shamed over minimum wage

BIRMINGHAM City Football Club was among almost 180 employers named and shamed by the Government for underpaying minimum wage workers.

According to new Government figures, Blues failed to pay £5,650 to 534 workers.

Other well-known businesses on the list included Wagamama and Marriott Hotels, while Premiership football team Stoke City was also identified.

Across the country it said employers had been underpaying more than 9,000 minimum wage workers by £1.1 million.

As well as recovering back pay for 9,200 workers, the Government also fined the employers a total of £1.3 million in penalties for breaking national minimum wage laws.

The most prolific offending sectors in this round were retailers, hospitality dressers.

It comes ahead of the next rate rise on April 1, when the National Living Wage will go up from £7.50 to £7.83 per hour.

Apprentices under the age of 19 and those in the first year of their apprenticeship will benefit from a record 5.7 per cent rise.

Later this month the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will launch a campaign to raise awareness of the new rates and encourage workers to speak to their employer if they think they are being underpaid.

Bryan Sanderson, chairman of the Low Pay Commission, said: “As the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates rise, it is vital that workers understand their rights, and employers their obligations. The Low Pay Commis- businesses and hair- sion is pleased to see the Government maintaining the momentum of its minimum wage enforcement. The recent announcement that all workers will have a right to payslips stating the hours they have worked – an idea originally proposed by the LPC – is a positive step.”

The new law is likely to benefit around 300,000 UK workers who do not currently get a payslip.

For those paid by the hour, payslips will also have to include how many hours the worker is paid for, making pay easier to understand and challenge if it is wrong.

Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages to the worker at current minimum wage rates but also face financial penalties of up to 200 per cent of arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker.