Retailer to repay 37,000 workers £2.4m for asking them to attend briefings and security checks outside working hours
Argos has been fined nearly £1.5m and forced to repay £2.4m in wages to 37,000 current and former shop workers after an HMRC investigation.
The catalogue retailer, which was bought by Sainsbury’s last year, wrote to staff on Thursday after it was found to have been paying less than the legal minimum wage to workers because it was asking them to attend staff briefings and carry out security checks outside the working hours for which they are paid.
Argos will only pay HMRC £800,000, receiving a discount on the £1.5m fine because it will pay the money within 14 days of being informed of the sanction.
The underpayments of about £64 per person date back to 2014 and were first uncovered last year ahead of Argos’s takeover by Sainsbury’s. The supermarket said it had changed processes in December, as soon as it was possible to do so after being made aware of the issue and would be paying back staff at the end of this month.
The number of workers underpaid by Argos is well in excess of those short-changed by Debenhams. The department store was hit with a £63,000 fine and forced to pay back nearly £135,000 to nearly 12,000 workers. The company said it had underpaid staff by an average £10 each in 2015 because of a “technical error in its payroll calculations”.
In a letter to staff, John Rogers, who became boss of Argos after it was acquired by Sainsbury’s six months ago, said the issue had been uncovered by HMRC as part of a “routine visit” and he had been informed after Sainsbury’s had acquired the business. “Unexpected things do come up as we get to grips with the business,” he added.
He said: “Sainsbury’s prides itself on being a trusted brand where people love to work and I was, therefore, very disappointed to hear this and launched an immediate investigation.”
He said that Sainsbury’s was planning to raise wages for the lowest paid Argos staff over 25 by 2% from £7.20 to £7.66 an hour and would be extending a discount on Sainsbury’s shopping to them. The national living wage, the legal minimum for over-25s rises from £7.20 to £7.50 in April.
“Without doubt colleagues make the difference to Argos and we are looking at pay and benefits across the business,” he said.
Article © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited.
Data released by the HMRC showed another local business, Mr Mohammed Choudhury trading as Good Response had underpaid a total of £825.04 affecting one member of staff.
