Employment Law/Tied Cottage help!

[Still Farming]

Does Employer take Pension contributions out as by law also?
Work place pensions?

 

[Dairyfarmerswife]

Does Employer take Pension contributions out as by law also?
Work place pensions?

Good point!

 

[Ukjay]

To be honest, I didn't reply because I was overwhelmed with the replies. To clarify; this is my OH that's upset about the situation. He does not get all of his holiday or compensatory rest. The farmer will make him work ridiculous hours, double shifts etc so that he doesn't have to pay his harvest help hourly to come in.

To curlietailz; he doesn't waste hours. He's a very hard worker and only has his lunch break half of the year. If he's spraying/drilling/rolling, he has to keep going, and isn't allowed to stop even for 10 minutes to eat. He has to hide his tractor behind a tree when I bring out a hot dinner so he can eat it. If he works a 100 hour week, he's working every hour of that. It's a 1000 ha farm for clarity, and it's just him and 2 hourlys (who rarely come in because my OH is doing the work for nothing). You might call him a mug, but he's a hard worker and genuinely loves his job. If we could find something better, we'd be gone.

A few people asked for the market rent of the cottage. In our area I would say about £650 in it's current state. It's very run down, and the repairs done to it have all been done by us.

For those asking about perks of the job, there aren't any. We get free wood, that OH sources and chops if that counts. We pay all fuel and utilities.

I've contacted ACAS. The operator I spoke to had no clue about agricultural employment law, and I'm reluctant to sit in a 40 minute queue again to find someone who is.

I'd have to work out what hours he does on average. Off season, he works 8 hour days, sometimes going over by an hour or 2. This time of year it's usually 80 hours a week at a minimum.

I'll be honest, I don't know where he stands on minimum wage because of the tied accommodation. The biggest issue here is holiday. I came here for some general advice, so thank you to everyone who replied- I really appreciate it. I guess I was just looking for some confirmation that it's not acceptable to treat your worker in this way. His boss is also a bully, and screams and yells at him. He takes the mick out of him to the hourlys, and it leaves him feeling very bad knowing they're getting £12 an hour.

Hi,

Just a thought owing to the complexity of your predicament - but I assume you have taken out home insurance etc for the cottage, so it may be worth you speaking to their legal helpline on there about this, specifically asking them if they have any legal representatives who understand employment law for agricultural workers - as they may have contacts who are able to give you some free legal advice.
Most if not all home insurance policies have free legal cover of between 50 - 100k - so you may be able to get this looked into via that avenue at no cost to yourselves and out of the media. Worth a discussion with them at least?

 

[Montexy]

No one has

To be honest, I didn't reply because I was overwhelmed with the replies. To clarify; this is my OH that's upset about the situation. He does not get all of his holiday or compensatory rest. The farmer will make him work ridiculous hours, double shifts etc so that he doesn't have to pay his harvest help hourly to come in.

To curlietailz; he doesn't waste hours. He's a very hard worker and only has his lunch break half of the year. If he's spraying/drilling/rolling, he has to keep going, and isn't allowed to stop even for 10 minutes to eat. He has to hide his tractor behind a tree when I bring out a hot dinner so he can eat it. If he works a 100 hour week, he's working every hour of that. It's a 1000 ha farm for clarity, and it's just him and 2 hourlys (who rarely come in because my OH is doing the work for nothing). You might call him a mug, but he's a hard worker and genuinely loves his job. If we could find something better, we'd be gone.

A few people asked for the market rent of the cottage. In our area I would say about £650 in it's current state. It's very run down, and the repairs done to it have all been done by us.

For those asking about perks of the job, there aren't any. We get free wood, that OH sources and chops if that counts. We pay all fuel and utilities.

I've contacted ACAS. The operator I spoke to had no clue about agricultural employment law, and I'm reluctant to sit in a 40 minute queue again to find someone who is.

I'd have to work out what hours he does on average. Off season, he works 8 hour days, sometimes going over by an hour or 2. This time of year it's usually 80 hours a week at a minimum.

I'll be honest, I don't know where he stands on minimum wage because of the tied accommodation. The biggest issue here is holiday. I came here for some general advice, so thank you to everyone who replied- I really appreciate it. I guess I was just looking for some confirmation that it's not acceptable to treat your worker in this way. His boss is also a bully, and screams and yells at him. He takes the mick out of him to the hourlys, and it leaves him feeling very bad knowing they're getting £12 an hour.

No one has to put up with being bullied at work or hide behind a tree in fear of being caught eating their meals. If what you say is correct then the employer is a bully and you both need to find another position asap, bully`s seldom change their ways - put all your efforts in finding an employer who will appreciate your hard work.

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

No one has

No one has to put up with being bullied at work or hide behind a tree in fear of being caught eating their meals. If what you say is correct then the employer is a bully and you both need to find another position asap, bully`s seldom change their ways - put all your efforts in finding an employer who will appreciate your hard work.

This above, there is no need to put fear in any employee, look for another job where he will be valued, as present one will not change

 

[honeyend]

@mrsgiles I would have a trawl of advice on government and housing charity websites,

Farm workers living in tied accommodation

Farm workers living on agricultural land rented to them by their employer may have various types of tenancy. Find out about agricultural tenancy rights

england.shelter.org.uk

.

Agricultural workers' rights

The rights of agricultural and farm workers - including pay rates, agricultural minimum wage, overtime, holiday leave, rest breaks, help and advice

www.gov.uk

Agricultural workers' rights

The rights of agricultural and farm workers - including pay rates, agricultural minimum wage, overtime, holiday leave, rest breaks, help and advice

www.gov.uk

They can not decide to not follow the law, even if it's been registered as a shorthold tenancy, you still have rights. I would also start keeping a diary of the hours he is actually working, he can support the evidence with date and timed photos on his phone.
The employer may be not only underpaying but avoiding pension and NI contributions. Unions get bad press, but they are good for support for this sort of thing.

 

[kiwi pom]

Hopefully he's been recording everything to back up what you say, if not he should start.
Find somewhere else to live and work if its that bad but take legal advice, if you're owed make sure you get it.

 

[betweenthelines]

mrsgiles, the £12/hr rate the other workers get is a good starting point to use to work out what you OH should be getting paid taking into account overtime etc. I suspect that once you do that, you'll find that either his real basic rate is under £10 hour or your "free" accommodation is very expensive depending on which way you look at it!

I think your OH is going to have to have a serious conversation with his boss, which I expect he is loath to do. Would it be possible to get a mutual acquantance such as a GP, NFU agent Sales Rep (even the local publican) etc to "initiate" the meeting along the lines of "I've noticed X is working some long hours and wondered if everyone is OK with this?"

If the employer isn't willing to discuss it informally , I think you will have to get CAB or ACAS involved, but that will lead to the breakdown of whatever trust there is between employer and employee.

A difficult situation, but it needs to be addressed quickly because your OH will lose either his health, his job or his partner if it isn't

I was once in a similar situation and made the decision that my wife is more important than a job. 35 years later, I'm confident I made the right decision.

 

[Goweresque]

If what you say is true, the employer sounds like a nasty piece of work. Admittedly we are hearing one side only, so one has to take things with a degree of salt, but it doesn't sound good at all.

The big question your OH has to answer is does he want this job to continue or not?

If not, its easy, just start to work to rule (ie 39 hour week on average), take statutory holidays and refuse to do any more. If the employer attempts to sack him, or make him redundant, engage an employment lawyer and take him to the cleaners, there's enough breaches of employment law here to make an employment tribunal go through the roof. And because of covid he'd find it pretty hard to evict you from the house as well. Certainly he wouldn't be able to get you out of the house for 3 months, maybe a lot more. But this is the nuclear option - the job and house will eventually be toast and your OH will need to find new ones. But hopefully with some compo in his pocket for his troubles. Potentially quite a lot, if he can prove the hours he has worked over the years meant he fell below minimum wage. To be honest the employer's lawyer (or more likely insurers) should tell him to settle because an employment tribunal would go to town on such blatant breaches of employment law. But make no bones about it, this option will be highly stressful at times and I'm sure the employer will not make things easy for you.

If he does want the job to continue, then its a lot harder, because you're attempting to make a bully change his ways voluntarily. And you can only vaguely intimate that legal action might be used, because the moment you go down the legalistic route, the scenario above will play out.

The final option is just to walk away. Yes, its letting the employer 'get away with it', but also leaving an immense amount of stress and heartache behind as well. Peace of mind can be worth a heck of a lot of £££ in the bank.

Good luck.

 

[neilo]

OH should demand that he is immediately given a pay rise, on which he will pay income tax and NI of course. However, he should also be prepared to pay a proper market rent for the house that he’s been paying 300 quid a year for (or rather hasn’t paid), out of that taxed income.
Be careful what you wish for, you might well find yourself far worse off, with bad feelings stirred up for the effort.

Is it little wonder folk don’t want to employ staff these days, especially when things often get stirred up when an OH gets involved.

 

[glasshouse]

OH should demand that he is immediately given a pay rise, on which he will pay income tax and NI of course. However, he should also be prepared to pay a proper market rent for the house that he’s been paying 300 quid a year for (or rather hasn’t paid), out of that taxed income.
Be careful what you wish for, you might well find yourself far worse off, with bad feelings stirred up for the effort.

Is it little wonder folk don’t want to employ staff these days, especially when things often get stirred up when an OH gets involved.

That is uncalled for

 

[glasshouse]

Perhaps you should employ an agent to-negotiate an increase in pay?

 

[lloyd]

My advice would be to seek employment elsewhere ,if your OH works
like you are telling us then he should atleast benefit from a better financial reward.
His boss sounds like a complete t*at ,lifes too short and so are the supply of hard workers .