08 March 2024 , 12:32
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Some Tesco staff will be paid less than minimum wage for almost a month due to a delay to a promised payrise.
The UK's biggest supermarket chain - which employs more than 330,000 staff - pledged to increase the minimum pay for shop workers from £11.02 an hour to £12.02 in April. However, the pay rise will not officially be implemented until April 28. This means the rise will come in 27 days after the UK's legal minimum wage rises to £11.44 on April 1.
The delay to the pay rise is not illegal and is allowed under HMRC rules. The rules state that minium pay rates can be applied from the start of the "pay reference period" starting on or after April 1. For Tesco, this period begins on April 28.
One "disgruntled" Tesco employee reached out to The Mirror to share their frustration noting that although it was not "illegal" it "surely must be immoral". There will be 220,000 Tesco workers missing out on an extra £1 an hour before the new rate is introduced at the end of April. Due to this, The Guardian estimates Tesco will be saving more than £17million.
The supermarket chain will also be saving 42p an hour - or overall £7million compared with if it paid the new legal minimum wage for those 21 and over. The new pay deal was negotiated and agreed upon by the Usdaw Union who said the new deal made Tesco workers "amongst the highest paid in the sector".
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Daniel Adams - Usdaw National Officer said: "Usdaw has negotiated a significant pay rise that makes Tesco workers While the Union will always seek implementation on the pay anniversary date, which was 2 April last year, the outcome of these negotiations meant that the date was delayed until later in April to allow for the highest investment in pay possible. Whilst we would have preferred that the company implemented this increase earlier, as Usdaw had originally requested, the regulations do allow them to make that decision.”
A Tesco spokesperson said: "We are investing over £300million in colleague pay, bringing our hourly rate to £12.02 which is significantly ahead of the National Living Wage (NLW), in a deal that has the full support of Usdaw. Our new rate is effective from our April pay period as set out in the HMRC guidelines, and we are fully compliant with all NLW requirements. We have a strong track record of making substantial investments in colleague pay and, since 2022, we have increased hourly pay by 26%, investing more than £750million in our colleagues."
Tesco also noted that it enhanced several other employee benefits including an increase in paternity leave to six weeks and an extension of its workers discount allowance to £2,000 per year.