Withholding final pay

[MAPLE LEAF]

Friend of mine has just left a garden maintenance job and his old boss is demanding he signs a confidentially clause stating he can't go after any of his business or tell anyone about his contracts.sounds like he is losing jobs by the day.thats fine my mate isn't going to go after anyway but he has to sign this to get his money.anyone knows if this is legal.

Thanks in advance

[Richard 1234]

Tell him to sign it it won't stand up in court anyway.

The right to earn a living or something.

[spudulike]

You would normally have this type of clause as part of an employment contract and seems pretty dodgy to try to do it ad hoc after the event has happened. The employee will have a right to his contractual earnings and unless this is in his original contract, would say the employer is on dodgy ground!

[Daythe trees]

Sounds like reverse gardening leave, whereby people are kept on the books for a period until their corporate knowledge is deemed null and void. In that circumstance they sign a clause to state they won't work for someone in the same industry until a set date but are still paid at their normal rate for that period. However what's being done to your mate sounds unlawful, unless they agreed to this in their initial contract? I'm no lawyer but I don't see how even that would be legal as the employer would then be withholding income legitimately owed within the same contract.

 

Did I help or just throw soil in clear water?

Edited September 21, 2016 by Daythe trees
Typo

[gooseflight]

Is he employed, freelance, sub-contract?

 

The point about any contract is that it's agreed in advance.

 

What's proposed is tantamount to blackmail.

[headgroundsman]

I would write the boss a letter stating following legal advice I am giving him 7 days to pay up what he owes or the matter will be taken to court. I know its a bluff but it could easily work

[beachbum73]

the employer has 28 days maximum to pay him, he cannot withhold payment for hrs worked, and to have a retrospect confidentiality agreement is IMO bollox, the liability lies with the employer not the employee, if however he is self employed i think its different but the 28 days max still applies. this may be old though.

 

 

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[felixthelogchopper]

Employer doesn't have a leg to stand on. If he wanted your friend to sign a restraint of trade clause (which is prima facie void in UK courts) then he needed to do it in the initial contract. What he is trying is an illegal deduction of wages and, as has been said by others, skating dangerously close to blackmail.

[Burgess]

Which although is true, if your friend isn't going to be doing any of that and wants his money with minimal hassle I'd probably just sign it and be done.

[onetruth]

Providing the employee has served his notice period (if there is one) and hasn't taken holidays which haven't been earned, the employer can't withhold pay like that (very few exceptions, none of which have anything to do with confidentiality). I think it is actually a criminal offence, not just a civil one.

 

Confidentiality clauses can be (and very often are) agreed retrospectively, usually with a big additional payment to the employee.

 

I'm a tree surgeon, not a lawyer, so don't quote me!

 

Edit: ...perhaps your friend could "offer" to publish everything he knows about his former employer on-line and email the link to all his clients and competitors? Or, as the previous poster suggested, sign it and forget about it.

Edited September 21, 2016 by onetruth