National Minimum Wage Act 1998 - Law

Law

The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 is universally applicable to ordinary workers (section 1(2)), that is, anyone who has a contract to do work, except for a consumer or a client (section 54(3)). Expressly included are those working through job agencies (section 34), so that the agencies' charges must not eat into a worker's basic entitlement. Home-workers are also included expressly, and the Secretary of State can make order for other inclusions. The Secretary of State can also make exclusions, as has been done for au pairs and family members in family business. Excluded by the Act are fishermen paid in a share of profits, unpaid volunteers and prisoners (sections 43-45).

The hours that are used in a national minimum wage calculation are dependent upon work type as defined within the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999. The different work types are time work, salaried hours work, output work and unmeasured work. Hours to be paid for are those worked in the "pay reference period", but where pay is not contractually referable to hours, such as pay by output, then the time actually worked must be ascertained. The principle is a very basic one: that hours worked should never as a whole be paid below the minimum. Excluded from "worked" are periods when the worker is on industrial action, time travelling to and from work and absent periods. When a worker is required to be awake and available for work, then they must also be paid, however this does not prevent so called "zero hour contracts" being used. That means you are guaranteed no hours, theoretically you are under no obligation, but it is strongly in your interest to be ready to work if your employer requests.