Almost two dozen employees of a Swindon pizza restaurant who were made redundant out of the blue have claimed they are owed thousands in unpaid wages.
Twenty two members of staff at the Regent Circus branch of Dough&Co were among workers of four branches across the country to find out they no longer had jobs weeks before Christmas when they received a message on the morning of December 4.
It's claimed a senior manager at the company, which is still operating 12 restaurants, told the employees in that same chat that they would receive all payments that they were owed, including outstanding holiday not taken and pay for the legally required notice period.
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But an email from the company sent to staff last Monday, seen by the Adver, informed them of a different arrangement.
It said: "After making the difficult decision to close restaurants due to heavy climate around energy bills and increasing rents we wanted to be fair with all teams as much this possible.
"However your restaurant did not perform well and was supported by other stronger branches. Unfortunately, we are not in the position to continue support and we decided to pay 50 per cent of your wages."
Shortly after this, employees claim they received what they say was a random amount in their bank account, saying most of which did not equate to 50 per cent of what they were expecting.
They said they were not given a payslip that would explain how this amount was calculated, and could no longer access the app they used for clocking in and out to check what hours they had worked.
This sparked anger and confusion with the team, who between them believe they were almost £8,000 out of pocket for their work throughout November and the start of December
One member of staff, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "I had been offered another job a couple of weeks before the restaurant closed, and I was encouraged to stay and told that I would receive a pay rise.
"I had to promise to turn down the other job, even though it paid better than they did, even with the pay rise, and now I've been made redundant."
Another staff member said: "Their email telling us we were only being paid 50 per cent also said 'your restaurant didn't perform' but that's not our fault, we're just the staff and we've worked hours we're not being paid for. Many of us did overtime on a regular basis to try and help out, all for nothing."
Another member of staff described the way they'd all been treated as "scandalous".
They added: "It's a shame because it was a really fun place to be, everyone got on well, there was good banter with the chefs, there was good banter with everyone."
A fourth member of staff said: "We want the answers, but they don’t want to know, none of us wants any more than what we're entitled to.
"I'm very disappointed, I'd been there since the beginning and would often work 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week, I wanted to make it work for everybody.
"But there's been no apology from anyone, no direct message or phone call and they've even hinted it was our fault, all while they're still active and posting on social media and still running other restaurants, it's mindblowng."
A spokesperson for the now-jobless workers said: "We are disappointed and let down by the awful communication and now we're all out of pocket just before Christmas."
They have now written a letter to the company with a breakdown of hours worked and money owed for each employee, asking for all outstanding payments to be made in full by Wednesday, December 21, or they will be left with "no choice" but to take this further to an employment tribunal.
The spokesperson added: "I, along with many others, find great sadness in having to write this, as I have enjoyed my time with Dough&Co. We fully understand the business wasn't doing well, we all have eyes to see that, but I like to think we did the best we could to keep it afloat.
"Therefore the treatment of the Swindon branch from Sunday and subsequent lack of payment will leave a bitter taste for years to come."
Swindon-based employment lawyer Lauren Harkin, from RWK Goodman, pointed out potential breaches in employment law but added that the options open to the employees may be limited.
"With situations like this employees can find themselves in a difficulty. They are entitled to receive notice pay, arrears of pay, holiday pay and redundancy pay (where they have over two years' service).
"However, unfortunately, if the company cannot or does not pay, or goes into administration, their only option is to apply to the Employment Tribunal and the government’s Redundancy Payments Service.
“When a business envisages making 20 or more redundancies within a 90-day period they trigger an obligation to collectively consult with employee representatives or a recognised trade union.
"A failure to collectively consult can result in protective awards of up to 13 weeks' pay per affected employee. Whilst such claims are normally brought by employee representatives or trade unions, where there is no election of employee representatives and no recognised trade union, the employees can individually claim for a protective award in the Employment Tribunal.”
In a further email to staff, Dough&Co claimed the Swindon pizzeria has closed "due to a lack of money" and that the person in charge of the finances had left.
The company said: "These factors are completely out of our control. The finance director had left the business and head office as a team is picking up where it was left off.
"This is no-one in particulars fault, it is a combination of unavoidable circumstances and it is very unfortunate."
The Adver approached Dough&Co initially about the closure of the restaurant and was told not to contact the company again.
We approached them a second time about the issues staff have over their final payment and were told to once again not contact the business.
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