Firm ordered to repay driver's wages

9:17am Friday 9th May 2008

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A HAULAGE firm which deducted a loan of more than than £900 from a lorry driver from his wages after he failed to repay it, has been ordered by an employment tribunal in Birmingham to repay it.

RK Logistics Solutions loaned the money to Wayne Cowell of Woodlands, Evesham, to enable him to take his Class 1 driving test as a lorry driver for the firm, and to improve his career, the tribunal was told.

The arrangement, made at the firm's depot at Upper Moor, Pershore, was that Mr Cowell would stay with the firm for at least a year and repay the loan in instalments from his wages, said the firm's managing director James King.

But Mr King said Mr Cowell left after only two months with the firm - and shortly after he had passed the three-day test at the firm's expense.

"He left without paying the money back so we deducted it from his final wages," said Mr King. "We had put our trust in Mr Cowell and he let us down."

Mr King was opposing a compensation claim by Mr Cowell for the unauthorised deduction of wages. Mr Cowell did not attend the hearing.

Tribunal chairman Mrs Ann Goraj said the firm faced losing the case because there had been no signed agreement about how the loan should be repaid. To deduct wages without permission was a breach of the Employment Rights Act, she said.

Mr King, who had driven down from Glasgow for the hearing, said the loan had been made with a verbal agreement and on a handshake.

"We believed in taking a man's word for it on a handshake," said Mr King. "In the circumstances I don't see why we should have to pay him the money back."

Mrs Goraj told the firm to pay Mr Cowell £913 and told Mr King: "Put it down to experience."

The firm is to now try and recover the loan from Mr Cowell through the county court.