Revealed: UK fast fashion staff deprived of pay by jobs agency

theguardian.com:

A jobs agency that supplies warehouse workers to fast fashion and high street brands repeatedly underpaid staff and deprived them of holiday pay, an Observer investigation has found.

Workers hired on zero-hours contracts to help process orders for PrettyLittleThing, its parent company Boohoo, The Very Group, Sainsbury’s and Currys are among those who claim to have had wages withheld by Mach Recruitment.

In an employment tribunal judgment handed down in May 2022 – one of six so far this year – Mach was ordered to pay £1,184 to a worker who worked 12 shifts at a warehouse for The Very Group in 2021 but never received his wages. In June 2022, the agency was ordered to pay £138 for taking unauthorised deductions from a worker’s salary, including failing to pay his holiday entitlement. In July it was ordered to pay £430 to a worker who claimed that she had not been paid for shifts. In another case last June, Mach was ordered to pay a worker £12,000 for unfair dismissal, £3,960 for unpaid bonuses, and £1,064 for unpaid holiday, tribunal records show.

In all, the agency has been taken to 12 employment tribunals in the past two years that resulted in it being ordered to pay money to workers, including 10 involving unpaid wages, unauthorised salary deductions or a failure to award holiday pay.

Mach did not engage in the cases and failed to answer calls and emails from the tribunal service, according to the judgments. In a statement this weekend, the firm blamed the communication and pay issues on Covid-19, adding that the claims were unfounded and that it was challenging the rulings.

As well as examining cases that went to tribunal, the Observer spoke to eight former Mach workers who were at the company between 2020 and 2022 and