AN INDIAN care worker has won more than £28,000 in lost wages and holiday pay after a tribunal found that his sponsoring company failed to provide him with work.
Shabin Shaji, 33, arrived in the UK through the health and care worker visa route and obtained the required certificate of sponsorship from Swan Care Solutions Ltd for a job placement.
He told an employment tribunal in Birmingham that the sponsor never provided him with work or paid him, which amounted to an unauthorised deduction from wages.
"It is for the claimant (Shaji) to show that there were wages properly payable to him, which were not paid. I have found the claimant was employed from April 15, 2023, to April 21, 2024. I have found this was based on a 40-hour working week with a gross salary of £22,880 per annum," said employment judge Edmonds.
"During that period, the claimant was ready, willing and able to perform his duties, and the only reason he did not do so was because the respondent did not provide him with work. The respondent withheld work from him, which was an external and involuntary factor preventing him from completing his duties.
"There was therefore an unauthorised deduction from his wages in respect of the full amount of his gross salary during this period. The deduction was not required or authorised by statute, nor by a term of the contract, nor did he agree to the deduction," the judge noted.
At a hearing last month, the company was also directed to cover legal costs in addition to the unpaid wages, holiday pay and remedy costs. The sponsor informed the tribunal that Shaji's employment did not commence due to incomplete formalities.
Shaji, who emigrated from Kerala in south India to Stafford in the West Midlands, was bound by visa restrictions that prevented him from seeking employment elsewhere in the UK. He eventually secured alternative full-time employment but faced considerable financial hardship until then.
"The claimant had done what needed to be done in order for him to start work. The start date on his certificate of sponsorship had already passed, and he was now in the country, with the right permissions, and living in the right location. However, the respondent did not provide him with work, nor did they pay him," the tribunal noted.
The Work Rights Centre (WRC) charity has been supporting several such cases involving the health and care worker visa, which was introduced after Brexit to address shortages in the country's healthcare sector.
"Ministers must look at what workers and public services really need and go beyond the narrow focus on migrant numbers to design an immigration system that works for the people who actually use it," said Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, WRC chief executive.
