Recruitment agency named and shamed for failing to pay minimum wage
A north Wales recruitment agency whose director attacked Labour plans to raise wages has been named and shamed for failing to pay the minimum wage.
Twenty Four Seven Recruitment Services was one of 200 firms publicly rebuked by the UK Government for failing to pay their lowest paid staff the minimum wage.
The Wrexham-based agency failed to pay £17,049.34 to 213 workers – the 26th highest amount owed by the employers named.
The company director is Jordan Christy Williams, who has been vocal about politics on Twitter.
Ahead of the last general election, he wrote: “Labour will raise corp tax whilst increasing av.wages substantially, terrifying job creators – investors.”
Williams was director of the company for the majority of the period when the wage arrears were racked up between January 2013 and April 2018.
He resigned in April 2018 but was later reappointed and is now the sole director of the company.
Williams also warned that tax rises would lead to wealthy people leaving the UK.
He wrote: “It’s only a short flight to Switzerland or Gibraltar. They can leave easily – & they will.”
Gibraltar
The company’s majority shareholder, Philip James Williams, resides in Gibraltar, according to Companies House filings.
High street brands such as Boots, Next, Marks and Spencer, and Waitrose are among the clients listed on the company’s website.
An advert on the firm’s Twitter account boast it has “excellence in legal compliance.”
Three more Welsh businesses were also named and shamed by the UK Government.
They include the Lion Hotel in Criccieth, which was put up for sale on Friday for the first time since 1978 at the “reduced price” of £1.8 million.
The hotel failed to pay £20.322,27 to nine members of staff between 2013 and 2019.
The businesses named have since paid the money owed to workers and faced financial penalties.
Bryan Sanderson, Chair of the Low Pay Commission, said: “The minimum wage acts as a guarantee to ensure all workers without exception receive a decent minimum standard of pay. Where employers break the law, they not only do a disservice to their staff but also undermine fair competition between businesses.
“Regular naming rounds should be a useful tool in raising awareness of underpayment and helping to protect minimum wage workers.”
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He should be chased through the streets by a baying mob.
Is he being fined or sent to prison as punishment? It doesn’t look like, it looks like fraud to me , how wasn’t this picked up by HM taxes before
Royal Mail Ynys Mon: 12 posties retire or quit, 4 agency replacements. That is shocking, corporate management at its worst…
Does that mean the agency staff are going to be expected to do three times the amount of work as a direct labour postal worker or will the householders of Ynys Mon be expected to wait a longer period for their mail, either way doe the phrase Bad Management spring to mind if so perhaps the same thing could apply to the management of the local postal service ie finish 12 managers and replace them with agency workers
Some hopes, you don’t learn a round overnight and being high season there is a lot of jobs going to take up any spare job seekers. Both Royal Mail and the Post Office were/are being led by unsuitable persons, some of whom should be in prison !
Naming and shaming is insufficient. What about punitive damages and removal & banning as a director?
Compensation for those underpaid should be calculated as amount lost plus a hefty multiple. Penalties go to the State and serve no purpose. It’s cash for the people ripped off that matters.