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Tesco staff must pay back overpaid wages
BOSSES at Tesco have been accused of behaving like Scrooges after demanding their Peterborough warehouse staff give back extra wages paid to them by mistake.
BOSSES at Tesco have been accused of behaving like Scrooges after demanding their Peterborough warehouse staff give back extra wages paid to them by mistake.About 300 workers at the company's distribution centre in Parnwell have been over-paid since the end of July, with some earning up to 150 per person more than they should have.
But the company is insisting the affected workers either give the money back, or put in unpaid hours to clear what they owe.
One member of staff, who asked not to be named, said: "A company which makes as much as Tesco could say, 'This is what you've been paid, this is what you should have been paid – merry Christmas, you've got away with it'. It wouldn't hurt them, would it?
"A lot of smaller companies give their staff a bonus, but we don't get a bonus, just shares."
Staff at the warehouse are understood to have been called into a series of meetings with managers last week to be told about the wages foul-up.
They heard that since a new pay rate was introduced at the end of July, employees who put in an average 37.5 hour week had been over-paid due to a "system error".
That meant workers had pocketed up to an extra 150 before deductions.
Now the company is demanding the over-payment is returned in a lump sum or three instalments, or worked off by staff putting in an extra 13 hours unpaid.
Tesco, which posted record pre-tax profits this year of 2.55 billion, told Parnwell staff the payroll error was exposed after a "query" was raised over overtime hours.
A check of all workers' pay was then carried out
A company spokesman, who said the glitch had been confined to the Peterborough warehouse, said: "We have had a minor payroll problem where staff have been overpaid. We have held discussions with our employee representatives locally about how this over-payment will be recovered.
"We have confirmed a process for this and given employees a number of options, including deferring the repayments until next year.
"It is very important to us that our people are paid correctly and we have put all possible steps in place to ensure this will not happen again."
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