Miss C Goregore Mr T Mushonga Miss M Kapfumvuti Mr T Kachingamire Miss F Whati v Manuel Divine Care Ltd t/a Harmony Projects HELD by CVP — 2023

The claimants were five care workers who had travelled from Zimbabwe to work for the respondent. Each received an offer for a home care support worker post at £10.50 per hour, with 40 contracted hours per week and an annual starting salary of £20,480 to be paid monthly on the last Friday of the month. They accepted the offers, started work on 7 December 2022, completed mandatory training, and the tribunal found that no bank details were taken and no payments were made on the first two pay dates in December 2022 and January 2023.

The respondent said the claimants were not ready and willing to work and that further work depended on shadowing and, alternatively, that each claimant had to have a car. The tribunal rejected that evidence, finding that shadowing was not an express contractual condition, that the respondent did not terminate the contracts when any condition was said to have failed, and that the car requirement was neither contractual nor implied. It found that the respondent was already in breach of the payment terms and that the claimants were entitled to be paid monthly while ready and available for work.

The tribunal awarded unlawful deductions from wages by calculating each claimant's entitlement as one-twelfth of the annual salary for the period worked, with credits for sums actually paid. It awarded Miss C Goregore £2,963.32, Miss F Whati £2,963.32, Miss M Kapfumvuti £3,701.01, Mr T Mushonga £4,558.64 and Mr T Kachingamire £3,228.40. The written reasons also record an inconsistency in the summary figure for Miss M Kapfumvuti: the summary section states £4,494.70, but the detailed arithmetic at paragraph 30 produces £4,488.70.

The tribunal found that no section 1 statement of particulars had been provided at the start of employment and, under section 38 of the Employment Act 2002, awarded two weeks' pay for each claimant at £787.69, because it considered that just and equitable in the circumstances. The claimants had also sought to add a separate claim for £4,500 each said to relate to visa or sponsorship fees, but permission to amend was refused. On the tribunal's detailed calculations, the total payable was £21,353.14.