Pizza Hut and Foot Locker fail to pay minimum wage

Pizza Hut- national minimum wage breach-2015

Pizza Hut, French Connection, Condé Nast, Foot Locker and Champneys Springs are among 48 employers that have been named by business minister Jo Swinson for failing to pay the national minimum wage to some employees.

Between them, the 48 employers owe their workers more than £162,000 in arrears.

Foot Locker failed to pay the national minimum wage to 601 staff, French Connection neglected to pay it to 367 staff, and Pizza Hut failed to do so for 32 employees.

Other employers on the list include Arta Restaurant, The Clothing Works, Toni and Guy, 99p Stores and the Body Shop.

The government has already named 210 employers with total arrears of over £635,000, for failing to comply with national minimum wage laws since October 2013.

Swinson said: “There is no excuse for employers that don’t pay staff the wages they are entitled to, whether by wilfully breaking the law or making irresponsible mistakes.

“The government is protecting workers by cracking down on employers who ignore minimum rules. We’ve also increased the penalty fines and boosted resources available to investigate non-compliance.”

A spokesperson from Condé Nast said: “We fully acknowledge that due to a clerical error we omitted to pay an intern the national minimum wage in July 2013.

”We apologise wholeheartedly for this oversight. As soon as we were made aware of the situation payment was organised as quickly as possible.

“It is our stated policy to pay all interns at Condé Nast the national minimum wage via monthly payroll.”

A spokesperson from 99p Stores added: “99p Stores has over 6,000 employees and, in its 14 years of trading, has never had this type of issue before.

”This matter related to one store and one store manager who acted on his own. The store manager was immediately dismissed once the organisation was informed of his activities.”

A spokesperson from Toni and Guy said: “As an organisation with over 400 salons globally under its brand umbrella, we do not condone any kind of mishandling of staff wages. Once made aware, the franchisee resolved the issue swiftly.”