Logical Deductions? Wage Protection Before and After Delaney v Staples
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1992.tb00945.x |
| Published date | 01 November 1992 |
| Date | 01 November 1992 |
CASES
Logical Deductions? Wage Protection Before and After
Delaney
v
Staples
Simon
Deakin
*
The Wages Act
1986
swept away the nineteenth-century Truck Acts in favour of
a new statutory code governing the payment of wages. The result was hailed as
the replacement of ‘a host of ancient and obsolete laws’ by ‘a comprehensive, easily
understood, easily enforceable and fairer set of statutory rights concerning deductions
from all workers, manual and non-manual.’’ Few would defend on the grounds of
legal clarity the Truck Acts of
183
1,
1887
and
1896,
legislation which Kahn-Freund
famously described as creating ‘almost insuperable difficulties’ and ‘suffering from
an incurable logical disease.’* Yet six years on from the passage of the Wages Act,
the law on deductions is as obscure and ‘illogical’ as ever and, on balance, less
well equipped than before for the task of ensuring adequate wage protection.
Laws
protecting the right to
be
paid wages
in
full
-
which are conceptually discrete
from laws laying down minimum rates of pay3
-
should
seek
to ensure that wages
are paid on a regular basis subject only to those deductions which are required or
authorised by statute, as
in
the case of income
tax
or national insurance contributions,
or which are authorised by the worker for her benefit, as
in
the case of union dues
or occupational pension contributions. Deductions for breach of discipline, or for
bad workmanship, should be regulated by collective bargaining and made only in
circumstances where the employer can point to damage and where the worker was
notified upon contracting that such deductions might be made.4
The Wages Act falls a long way short of this ideal. However, even the little
protection which
it
appeared to offer to workers had been put
in
doubt by a series
of conflicting decisions
in
the Employment Appeal Trib~nal.~ The confusion over
interpretation was particularly unfortunate
in
the light of the recent rapid rise in
the number of applications to industrial tribunals under the Wages Act.6 The
decisions of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords
in
Delaney
v
Staples’
*Fellow of Peterhouse and University Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge.
1
2
Kenneth Clarke MP. HC Deb
vol
91,
col
799,
1
I
February
1986.
Kahn-Freund, ‘The Tangle
of
the Truck Acts’
(1949) 4
industrial
Law Review
2,
reprinted in
Selected
Writings
(London: Stevens,
1978)
pp
154-160;
the quotations in the text are to be found at p
157
and refer to the inconsistencies between the
1831
and
1896
Truck Acts.
Now to
be
found
in
Part II of the Wages Act
1986,
which has replaced earlier wages councils legislation.
See ILO Convention No
95
of
1949
on Protection
of
Wages. This was denounced by the UK in
1985
in
anticipation of the Wages Act.
Greg
May (Carpet Fitters
&
Contractors)
Ltd
v
Dring
[
19901
IRLR
19;
Barlow
v
Whittle
[
1990)
IRLR
79;
Alsop
v
Star Vehicle
Contracts
Lrd
[I9901
IRLR
83;
Delaney
v
Staples
[I9901
IRLR
86;
Chiltern
House
Lrd
v
Chambers
[
19901
IRLR
88;
New Centurion Trust
Ltd
v
Welch
[
19901
ICR
383;
Kournavous
v
J
R Masterton (Demolition)
Ltd
[
1990)
IRLR
I
19;
York City
&
District Travel
Lrd
v
Smith
[
19901
IRLR
313;
Foster Wheeler
(London)
Ltd
v
Jackson
[
19901
IRLR
412; Janstorp
International
(UK)
Lrd
v
Allen
[I9901
IRLR
417.
In
1987-88,
applications under the Wages Act represented
I
.5
per cent
of
all applications
to
industrial
tribunals; in
1988-89,
over
11
per cent; and in
1989-90,
over
15
per cent. See ‘Industrial Tribunals:
An Update’
(1991)
99
Department
of
Employment
Gazette
303;
ACAS,
Annual Report
(London,
1991).
[I9901
IRLR
86
(EAT),
[
19911
IRLR
I12
(CA),
119921 2
WLR
451
(HL).
3
4
5
6
7
848
The
Modern
Law
Review
55:6
November
1992 0026-7961
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