Minimum wage fines

Two Hull-based telecoms companies have been ordered to pay almost £100,000 to nearly 200 staff they had been underpaying. Axis Telecom and Servizon, will pay £21,224 and £75,117 respectively to their employees.

The companies claimed that the employees were apprentices, but an employment tribunal ruled that they should in fact be on the higher rate National Minimum Wage.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said the case shows why more resources must be put into catching cheats. “Rogue bosses who knowingly set out to underpay their workers must be publicly named and shamed.”