7by7

There's no way I can say this without coming across as a bumptious arrogant fool however!! due to the twist that this thread is taking I'm going to throw myself to the TV wolves.

Every week in life I will be approached by a friend ( or friends ) requesting help on various matters. Due to my long business career and contacts I'm known as being someone who can cut through he BS and sort problems out. It's my pleasure to help, and I also find it interesting. So far so normal I would say.

I live in an area called Bridgeton in Glasgow, Scots know it is a renowned rough and violent area. By definition in my daily life I mix with some seriously dangerous people, and I mix with salt of the earth types. People just getting on with their lives, and trying their best. I love living here as there is a real sense of community still here. So far maybe still so normal??

In this area there are plenty of vulnerable people, some self inflicted, some born that way, some ground down by the vagaries of life, once again so far so normal. What's my point??

UK Employment Law is not in place to protect those of us that can stand up for ourselves, it's in place to protect those that cannot. There are millions of people out there that lack confidence, education, and lets be brutally honest about it, the IQ, to work there way through life and the system without help.

We in the UK decided years ago that these people would get assistance, and I totally agree with that. I have family members who are at the lower end of the socio-economic ( and truth be told IQ ) scale. However they worked away all their lives and paid their tax and national insurance just like the rest of us. These people are the salt of the earth types, they would give you their last penny, their last crust, if you were in need. They don't need charity, they don't need pity, but they do need protection from bullying manipulating employers.

I've seen it happen, I saw my young cousin work for a whole week and go unpaid as the so called employer took the hump with his immediate boss. I had to go down and slap the head off the employer and take the wages off him. I had to do it because his Dad couldn't, he was a hard working man, a real grafter, but timid. That man was one of the greatest men I ever met in my life, and I'm not exaggerating. His greatness came from the fact that he would work every hour that God sent, in deplorable conditions, for the benefit of his family. He retired from a life of manual hard graft at the age of 63, and died 3 weeks later. Sometimes God can be cruel.

So please resist the temptation to use phrases like " man up ", don't attempt to impose your psychology on others, and understand that it takes all sorts to make a world. Some people do not have the confidence, the knowledge, the ability to go into confrontation of any sort. Some people would rather suffer abuse than speak up for themselves.

This is why we created Employment Law, so that families that don't have relatives like theblether can get help. I think it is one of the greatest achievements of my society, and it makes me proud to be a citizen of the UK.

The OP's wife is now a legally landed member of my society, she is entitled to the same consideration and respect as any other spouse, or for that matter any other member of my society. This situation that she finds herself her should not be tolerated, and the OP must take charge of the situation.

It is up to the OP whether he wants to go through legal recourse, or just remove his wife from that job. He will make the decision that is best for his family, he came here looking for advice and possibly support and now he has it. TV at it's best.

The issues on this thread are all over the place. Let's stick to the OP.

The OP has stated that his legally landed wife is working 60 hours per week at a rate of £3.00 per hour. His wife is entitled to work in the UK and she is entitled to protection from abuse.

I've been spending some time researching this answer today and I should point out that I am a UK employer, and I have spoken to my sister who is a Director of Human Resources for the NHS, as well as other family members including a Company Secretary of 26 years standing, an industrial accountant, and a Company Director of 27 years standing who has recently retired and taken to helping out at the Citizens Advice Bureau. The Company Director referred me to the Citizens Advice Guide as it is user friendly, here it is

http://www.advicegui..._employment.htm

I'm only concerned with the OP, I have lifted the relevant passages from the guide, they are all in bold.The first part we need to be concerned with is whether or not the lady is an employee or not, here is the source of the problem.....

Are you an employee or self employed.......
It is very important to find out what your employment status is. Many employment rights, such as the right not to be unfairly dismissed, and the right to redundancy pay, rely on you being an employee........
It is common for an employer to call someone self-employed, or a ‘casual worker’ or a ‘trainee’, when that person is really an employee. Employers do this in order to avoid having to pay tax and national insurance for their employees and to try to avoid them having employment rights.

Now here is the definition of an employee, it may shock some of you.....

How to tell if someone is an employee or not
The following factors will all help you decide whether you are an employee or self-employed when you want to find out what your employment rights are:-
does your employer tell you what work to do and how to do it (even if you are left alone to actually carry out the work). Does your employer provide you with work, or do you have to go out and find your own work to do. If your employer controls the work to be done and provides the work, you will be an employee
how you are paid. If you are paid a regular amount of pay at regular intervals, rather than being paid per job done, this indicates you are an employee

The reason why this definition is so important is that it prevents malicious abuse of employees by rogue employers. The OP's wife is absolutely, and have no doubt about it, an employee. The HMRC would not accept any notion that she was self employed and working permanently in the restaurant.

Okay, here is the next shock for many of you......A contract of employment can be written, or it can be verbal.

As soon as an employer offers a verbal statement of employment it becomes a contract of employment. How many employers out there know that? The OP's wife has been verbally offered a position, told her duties, and has been told the hours she has to work.....here is the relevant passage.

What is a contract of employment?

There is always a contract between an employee and employer. You may not have anything in writing, but a contract will still exist. This is because your agreement to work for your employer and your employer’s agreement to pay you for your work forms a contract.

Here is the next important part......

Your employer does have to give you a written statement within two months of you starting work. The statement must contain certain terms and conditions.

A contract gives both you and your employer certain rights and obligations. The most common example is that you have a right to be paid for the work you do. Your employer has a right to give reasonable instructions to you and for you to work at your job. These rights and obligations are called contractual terms.

The rights that you have under your contract of employment are in addition to the rights you have under law, such as, for example, the right to a national minimum wage and the right to paid holidays.

We can deduce that the OP's wife does not have a written Contract of Employment, that is illegal. In effect the law allows for a period when you are on a verbal trial in this regard of two months, however after that you must receive a written contract.

Here are the Basic Employee Rights in the UK.....

http://www.advicegui...hts_at_work.htm

I'm not going through all of them, I'll be hear all night, however the employee is entitled to things such as paid annual leave, statutory sick pay etc etc An employee working 40 hours per week is entitled to 28 days paid holiday per year, not the mere 10 days ( or is it 14, OP please clarify ), that the wife is getting at the moment. Many people make the mistake of including normal days off into their so called 2 week break, that is incorrect.

Here is the next problem.....the Working Time Directive.....

It is illegal to compel someone to work more than 48 hours per week without their express written consent.

http://www.direct.go...off/dg_10029426

There is plenty to the Working Time Regulations, and it goes beyond how many hours per week.....check this link

http://www.freelance...-bank-holidays/

Right, I could go on and on about this subject, I think I have proven that under the law the OP's is an employee....let's look at the payment issues.

The current minimum wage for someone in the UK over 21 is £6.08 per hour,

http://www.hmrc.gov....-to-day/nmw.htm

the actual cost to the employer is 12% on top of that, this additional payment is called the Employers National Insurance Contribution. On the minimum wage of 60 hours x £6.08 = £364.80. The ENIC additional content is £30.47 per week, which calculates out to £1584.46 per annum.

That is £1584.46 stolen from the UK taxpayer.

The OP's wife going through at the minimum wage on a 60 hour week would be producing this level of income and taxation.
Gross Pay £18,969.60 £1,580.80 £364.80
Tax free Allowances £8,105.00 £675.42 £155.87
Total taxable £10,864.60 £905.38 £208.93
xTax due £2,172.92 £181.08 £41.79
National Insurance£1,365.31 £113.78 £26.26
Total Deductions£3,538.23 £294.85 £68.04
Net Wage £15,431.37 £1,285.95 £296.76
Employers NI £1,584.46 £132.04 £30.47  

If you add on the Income Tax that the wife should be paying, and the NIC that she should be paying on just the basic wage that totals £3538.23, now adding the ENIC the total theft from the system is £5167.69.

OP, your wife is complicit in stealing £5167.69 per annum from the UK government. She is complicit because she is allowing it. You are complicit too because you are allowing it. How much more rightful tax due is this employer denying the Exchequer?

have a look at this.......

http://www.direct.go...MRC/DG_10010579

Now have a look at this.....

http://www.justanswe...tributions.html

No pay slips, no record of payments etc is a recipe for disaster, a serious recipe for disaster. The OP is taking the risk of the restaurant being raided and his wife being caught up in a tax investigation. Surely it occurred to the OP that "foreign" owned restaurants are known for employing people illegally and are often randomly raided?....please note the first one was a Thai food outlet......

http://www.ukba.home...illegal-workers

http://www.ukba.home...worker-grantham

http://www.ukba.home...illegal-workers

Did the OP seriously go to the trouble of getting his wife a settlement visa to then get her caught up in these types of raids? Where they go the other agencies follow.

Here's the nub of the matter, if the OP's wife went to the tax authorities she would be regarded as a victim. The HMRC would take action against the employer and move to recover the money lost by this fraud.

If the OP's wife is caught on the premises then the burden of proof falls on her. I can easily calculate the actual tax due just now if the OP would tell me the start date. It is very much a case of who get's the story in first, if it becomes a problem. Proactive is far better.  

In that case you will find yourself in an Alice in Wonderland Magic Roundabout scenario, I have been in several "disputes" with the Revenue over the years and I know what I'm doing, I helped a friend win a Tribunal last month where one of the issues was the lack of a written Contract Of Employment.

Trust me OP, you don't want to get involved in that situation. It is brain damage, and I mean brain damage.

So in summary, your wife is illegally employed, is complicit in tax fraud, and is breaking employment regulations left right and centre, and to make it worse, it's not her fault, it's your fault.

It's your fault because you have failed in your duty of care to your wife, it was you that relocated her to the UK, and it is you that is allowing this to continue. This is the harsh reality of the matter, I'm sorry if it irritates you however I'm doing you a favour. Show your wife this reply.

To all those that are taking a live and let live attitude, an attitude that it is a good way for the wife to integrate into UK society, in this case you are wrong.

The UK tax authorities are currently merciless, they have never been so motivated to extract every coin that they can. They are using various relatively new measures to gain as much revenue as possible, and they are taking people to court at every opportunity.

You may have been in business in the UK in the past, but you have never seen such a concerted effort by the tax authorities and trust me, the Immigration authorities as you are seeing now. Under no circumstances would I expose my Thai partner to the threat of this level of scrutiny, and believe me, I know what I'm doing.

OP, tell your wife to hand her notice in, she will get a job in a heart beat, even in places like Dominos Pizza and MacDonalds. OP, take control of the situation before you regret it.......and if she objects just point out this is British culture, I've always wanted to say that to a Thai.