Mr O Kolawole v LJ Health and Wellbeing Ltd and Jacksonwell Recruitment Ltd: 2402107/2024
JUDGMENT
The claimant is successful in his claim for unpaid wages against the first respondent. The second respondent is dismissed from these proceedings. The first respondent, LJ Health and Wellbeing Ltd, is ordered to pay to the claimant Mr Kolawole £2244 in unpaid wages.REASONS
[1]Mr Kolawole’s claim is one of fourteen claims against the respondents, arising out of a period in the second half of 2023 and early 2024 when a number of care workers worked for the respondents but were either not paid at all, or paid only a small amount of wages. Like Mr Kolawole, they have attempted to obtain payment from the company and directly from the director, Mr Liam Jackson, but have been unsuccessful. Both the first and the second respondent remain active companies according to the Companies House register.[2]The fourteen claims are being heard together in the Tribunal. This judgment relates solely to Mr Kolawole. One of the other claimants thought that there might have been a transfer of his employment from the first respondent to the second respondent, Jacksonwell Recruitment Limited, in February 2024. However, Mr Kolawole stopped working for LJ Health and Wellbeing Ltd before Jacksonwell Recruitment was incorporated as a company at the start of February 2024, and so Mr Kolawole can have no claim against Jacksonwell Recruitment Limited, the second respondent. It is therefore dismissed from Mr Kolawole’s claim.[3]Neither respondent submitted a valid response to the claims on time. The claims are therefore not defended.[4]Mr Kolawole provided me with evidence to show that he worked for the respondent from 7 October to 13 November 2023, doing a total of 20 night shifts from 10pm to 8am, with an unpaid break of one hour per shift. He therefore worked for 9 hours per shift. His rate of pay was £12 per hour. He has therefore earned £2160 and has been paid £168. He is owed £1992 in unpaid wages.[5]His contract of employment (and indeed the statutory entitlement to paid leave) entitles him to holiday pay as part of his wages. He has never received holiday pay. Based on his working time of 180 hours over a five week period, he has accrued 21 hours’ holiday and is therefore also entitled to receive holiday pay of 21x £12, which is £252, at the end of his employment, which he was never paid. This is added to his unpaid wages of £1992 to give a total amount of wages owed of £2244, which is payable immediately by the first respondent LJ Health and Wellbeing Ltd.[6]It is hoped that the first respondent complies with its legal obligation to pay the amount ordered in this judgment. Mr Kolawole has told me about the significant financial hardship caused to him and his family as a result of not having been paid. However, given the lack of engagement by the respondents in these proceedings, it may be that Mr Kolawole needs to take steps to enforce the judgment against the first respondent. Information about how to do this in the letter accompanying this judgment, but he is reminded of the availability of free advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau to assist him in any steps he may choose to take, such as a statutory demand or otherwise.