Employer has withold final payment after fired gross misconduct

[Shod]

I was recently fired after 2 months for gross misconduct (not following company procedures leading to a potential financial loss for the company).

My last wage has been witheld to "mitigate their losses", which after reading through the company handbook I have read they "reserve the right to deduct money from an employees wage in order to recover monies lost through, including but not limited to, not following company procedures, theft, damage of property etc".

So i guess by law the are allowed to do this, however I have been told that they must inform me BEFORE the deductions are made, and how much would be deducted etc. I was not told my wage was to be retained until my final disciplinary gearing, which took place on the day my wage was due to be in my account (the last working day of the month), this was verbally and I was not told how much is to be deducted (I still do not know).

With this in mind, do I have any comeback with regards to getting all or part of my wage back? as from my understanding they have not followed legal procedures to allow them to keep my wage by not informing me in advance & in writing that my wage was going to be retained, and how much will be deducted. As I say I am still in the dark as to how much they are going to deduct and when or if I will get any remainder, they have so far just kept the full amount.

On a side note, I also understand being fired for misconduct means I cannot claim JSA. Does anyone know if this also affects income support, and if not do I need a sick note or wahtever in order to initiate a claim?

Any advice on how to move on from here would be most appreciated. Thank you very much.

[sue11]

You need the likes of Ethel and co to help you with this one properly!! My understanding is that the handbook would not suffice as written notice and I think that your employers have acted unlawfully. I am not even sure that they are allowed to do this anyway, epecially if you did not actually lose money for the company. I own my own business and the employment advisors I use get very twitchy about any talk from me of witholding pay for any reason except absolute proof of theft by the employee. Even then I have to put it in writing to the employee before being allowed to take any money from wages. I think you should take further advice on this one as on the face of it, it sounds like you are being treated unfairly. Best of luck, I hope if you were genuinely guilty of gross misconduct, that you have learnt your lesson! Keep us informed of your progress.
Sue

[buildersmate]

See here.
http://www.emplaw.co.uk/researchfree-redirecto r.aspx?StartPage=data%2f098001.htm

They will probably argue that the Company Handbook constitutes an authorisation under a "relevant provision" of your employment contract

[Chellebelle3]

For starters they have broken employment terms of your misconduct hearing. They have a legal obligation to pay you till the time of any outcome of a hearing so the fact that they did not pay you on the day of the hearing would suggest to me that they had already made the decision to sack you. Assuming that your wages are paid by bacs or bank transfer it would take a couple of days for them to start this process, ie they would have to do a wage run on a weds to enable staff to be paid on a friday!!

on this basis it would then suggest that they had decided on the weds that you were going to be sacked and were in turn not given a fair hearing by your company.

Assuming you have been with the company for more than a year i would go to a solicitor and see what they have to say as clearly by their own actions they were never going to give you a fair trial and they were also with holding pay while you were suspended from duties which they are not allowed to do.

I was sacked under gross misconduct from my employment and had a case against the company but there was nothing i could do because i had not been employed for over a year, which i think sucks personally!!

I just hope that you manage to get your wages back and as sue said from what you say you did not cause the company to lose any money therefore they are not entitled to with hold your money