Foreign Labour

A Nigerian student works as a night manager in a hotel six nights a week. Each shift is 12 hours long and he is paid £130 a week. You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that this is way below the minimum wage. He tells the owner of the hotel that he is thinking of applying for a national insurance number. The owner’s response is “you go ahead and pay tax, but I do not pay tax and do not intend to pay tax”. Later the student is told that if he applies for a national insurance number he will be sacked and the next day, he is sacked.

The student brings a claim of race discrimination.

The tribunal find that a British or British-based comparator would not have been underpaid in the same way the student was, and that putting pressure on him not to apply for a NI number was also discrimination. They concluded that it was clear that he was employed because, as a Nigerian student, he was vulnerable and could be treated less well because he only had limited rights to be employed.

The student is awarded damages of £17,720.07 including £8,000 for injury to feelings.

This case is a real lesson for employers who think “best practice” is a pop group.

Trying to exploit “foreign labour” by paying less than the minimum wage is not best practice. It is also very risky and unlawful to pay foreign labour less than British labour simply because of race. Different rates of pay must be because of things like skill levels, not colour of skin or ethnic origin.
There is also a lesson for employers who behave badly in that if you get caught do not expect any sympathy from the legal system.

Published 17/07/2007.