Moy Park is among a number of companies to have been fined for failing to pay minimum wage to workers.
A report published by the Government featuring a total of 179 UK businesses has revealed that the poultry producer failed to pay £33,500 to 338 workers. The business is now being forced to back-pay and has been fined for underpayment.
Moy Park, which is based in Craigavon, has apologised and stated it has taken steps to ensure the incident is not repeated.
A spokesperson said: “As soon as this isolated example of underpayment was identified we apologised to those affected and ensured reimbursement. As a responsible employer we have taken steps to ensure this issue cannot reoccur.”
Moy Park is not the only food business on the list – snack manufacturer Tayto was fined for failing to pay £2,200 to 50 staff members. Tayto told the national press it was informed about the amounts owed on 20th March last year, and paid staff by 4th April. Potato brand Wilson's Country in Craigavon also failed to pay £24,560.53 to 63 workers and claims this was “innocent and unintended”.
Eight Northern Ireland businesses have been fined in total.
Unite regional officer with responsibility for workers in the agri-food sector, Sean McKeever, commented: “In the case of the 338 workers denied a total of more than £33,500 by Moy Park, we understand that they are on sites not represented by Unite. Despite this, we are demanding an urgent meeting with Janet McCollum, the chief executive, to explain how this has arisen. This is a company which only recently reported £18 million in pre-tax profits – up 7% on the previous year – there can be no excuse.
“Unite is calling on the companies to address this issue once and for all by committing to become a fully-accredited Living Wage employer. That means instead of failing to pay workers a bare minimum of £7.50 (£7.83 from April) – that would mean they would pay all their workers at least £8.75 an hour.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
