The UK government said, after examining minimum wage payments between 2016 and 2018, that 139 companies had not paid 6.7 million pounds (2.7 billion HUF) to thousands of workers. The current minimum wage in the UK is 8.72 pounds ($ 11.91) for workers 25 and over.
Tesco, with over 3,700 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland and nearly 7,000 stores worldwide, is by far the largest player in According to CNN On the government shame list. According to the British administration, the retailer did not properly pay the minimum wage to 78,199 employees, due to more than 5 million pounds (2 billion HUF) for its employees. The chain itself is “very disappointing and surprised to be added to the list” as they claim that although they actually failed to pay the minimum wage in 2017, they informed the government at the time.
“In 2017, we identified a technical issue that meant that some colleagues’ salaries were inadvertently falling below the national minimum wage. We are very sorry that this happened and we have reported the problem proactively,” Tesco told CNN Business in its call.
“We gave all of our colleagues full compensation and promptly changed our payment policies to prevent the situation from happening again. In most cases, the payment was £ 10 or less,” the company added.
Pizza Hut, which turned out to not pay nearly £ 846,000 to 10,980 workers, was also put on Britain’s list of shame. Superdrug, one of the UK’s largest pharmacy chains, was also added to the list, with a government investigation finding that its 2,222 employees had not received a total salary of more than £ 15,000 (6.1 million HUF).
“Paying the minimum wage is not an option but a legal obligation,” British Foreign Secretary Paul Scully said in a statement. It is unacceptable for any business owner to replace their employees in the short term to get around the regulations, he says, but it is especially disappointing for mega-firms to commit such violations.
In Hungary, by the way, this has not yet been agreed upon What should be the minimum wage in 2021.
