So here's a little story. I started this job last year, it was an apprenticeship which in the UK means I legally get paid around half of the minimum wage in return for free training/eventual qualification. Because my income was so low, I was entitled to state benefits to help me get by, but I needed to include details from my contract in the application. The problem: my employer didn't even give me a contract when I started working there. I literally didn't know the exact wage, job duties, or amount of hours I was required to work lol. I kept asking and asking, and the boss would just say 'yeah I've typed it up but I need to print it out', 'I've sent it to [Other Boss] to print' etc etc. It took over a month for them to finally give it to me. It probably cost more for me to actually get the bus into work than what I was getting paid. It even took the boss's sister in law/favourite employee to tell him multiple times that it was literally costing me to come into work before they finally gave me the damn contract. As soon as I got it I applied for the income support and requested backpay for that month I missed out, stating my reasons that I wanted to apply earlier but I literally couldn't fill out the application as my employer wouldn't tell me the required details. They came back and denied the backpay as “that wasn't a good enough reason” Like wut
Thankfully I no longer work there, I was forced to resign due to a mental breakdown partially caused by their illegal practices and the fact that they forced me, an unqualified trainee, to run the whole thing almost fully by myself due to the boss making an admin error which resulted in the rest of the employees not legally being allowed to work there for at least 3 months lol. Wild