Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

It's not really clear whether this is an actual cable company (if it is there's a good chance that it's VM as they own the vast majority of UK cable companies now), or a contractor. IIRC, there's only one tiny cable operator that VM don't now own.

The defendant was called Paul, but it didn't reveal any more details than this.

An installer refused to return the van and installation equipment after he claims that he was still owed wages. The van was eventually let go as it was owned by a fleet lease company, but he took all the equipment out.

Do VM lease their vans?

Is not being paid a common problem for installers? I'm wondering if it is for this man to go to such extraordinary lengths.

The relevant case starts halfway through after the second break:

http://www.itv.com/hub/judge-rinder

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

AFAIK it was a company called Powasava or something like that (unsure on spelling) based in Bristol who was a sub contractor to the contractor McNicholas...

Thats all i'm willing to say...

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Are McNicholas themselves contractors for VM?

In the end, the installer received part of his claim for wages and disputed that he'd kept any equipment, which was accepted.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Yes McNicholas are a contractor to Virgin Media and Powa Sava was a contractor to McNicholas

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Thanks, seems odd that VM can contract out the work to one company, who in turn contract the work out to another.

The two companies must both be making a profit and VM must be getting the work done cheaper than doing it themselves :confused:

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

That's often how contracts work..

Personally, I don't see how the contractor's subcontractor can still be making a profit, but in terms of contractors, it could conceivably be cheaper for VM to use them purely because they don't need to maintain a load of depots for their vans. The contractors probably do, but they can share the cost amongst multiple customers (even though VM are the only cable company in the area, they can probably do works on other cables and pipes under the road, so the cost of each depot could be shared between VM, BT (or any other fixed line telco) and any of a number of other utilities..

There are also other costs (such as credit control, accounts, payroll management) that can be shared amongst multiple customers. Customers, in this case, being the companies that employ the contractors

---------- Post added at 21:59 ---------- Previous post was at 21:19 ----------


I saw the case and both sides failed to provide proof of their argument. The installer failed to prove he had returned the equipment, and the contract failed to prove he hadn't. As such, the Judge was force to assume the equipment had been returned (presumably the old innocent until proven guilty idea).

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

The contractor deserved to lose due to their incompetence. Asset management is done for a reason - so that you know where your kit is and who has it.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Not odd at all but the norm.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

If this is like someone i know that did this with BT he will get the sack as they will try and make out he tried to steal the equipment in some way.

A guy a few years i knew worked for BT and BT didnt pay him his overtime for 2 months which amounted to a few £100 and he did something very similar and BT made claims he was trying to steal equipment in the van amounting to over £20k and the van itself. Not only did he lose the case he also lost his job.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

What an incredibly stupid thing to do.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

I do sub-contract work for other companies many of whome are contracted to customers. If I had too much work on I would probably subcontract that out to A.N.Other rather than turn down a client

Most of the final subbies are one-man-bands and have substantially lower overheads than a full company. That's how everybody makes a cut. It's the way of the modern world.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

I don't know if they had any kind of check in/out or tracking procedures for equipment/stock given to installers (although I think they should have), but I saw the case and the Judge certainly told them they had lost the case due to their incompetence when they let plaintiff build up such a huge backlog of jobs he had not submitted time sheets for.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

It's all clearly just a tax fiddle anyway. People who work for the likes of MJ Quinn and Kelly's are to all intents and purposes employees. But they get away with being called self-employed. That way the firms don't have to worry about tax or national insurance.

HMRC have a test that determines if someone is self employed or not, it asks questions like "do you have a specific start time?", "what happens if you don't turn up to work on time?", "do you have someone you are answerable to?", etc etc. The lads working for MJ Quinn's and Kelly's on the OR contract would almost certainly fail the test and therefore should be brought into the PAYE system. But no one at HMRC seems to care about this type of thing anymore.

The country loses money and the staff lose all of the employment laws that come with being employed. Makes me angry!

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Are contractor and Sub contractor vans VM branded? If so, I guess this makes it harder to utilise them for other purposes.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Usually they'll be like "Kelly communications / MJ Quinns working with / on behalf of Virgin Media / Bt Openreach"

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

I've also seen vans "liveried" with stick-on magnetic panels

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Not always

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

My Van is fully sitckered up as are ALL McNicholas vans...

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Yours may well be, but not all are. I know as a matter of fact.

The vast majority are, but some guys are using temporary vans, for example.

I've seen guys using unlogo'd vans at my site, regularly.

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Cheers. Is this branding easily removable for other jobs?

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Maybe they haven't fully rolled out the new fleet then...

In the south they should be VW caddys and VW transporters all stickered up

Up north they are Fiat Doblo's i believe but don't quote me on that

Re: Installer holds van & equipment hostage over unpaid wages claim.
 

Fiats in SANE Region