Salary deductions help needed

[danieljf1983]

If an employee has targets to make and it was agreed as per the employment contract that if the target was not met - that R5k would be deducted from the salary - (This is understandable)

With the above example, the employee did not make target and was supposed to get paid R5k less, instead the employee got paid half their salary and the reason for this was that the invoices they he/she sent out to clients have not been paid yet.

Question here, can a employer deduct from your salary if the employers invoiced clients have not paid? The employees job is to invoice the client and then the job goes to the debtors department which the employee has no control over. Some of the clients most likely have 30 day accounts as well. Back pay is also not given.

The employer was approached and the employee was advised that they can approach CCMA as the employer is fully in his right.

 

[maumau]

Could swear this question was asked within the last couple of months.

 

[danieljf1983]

Its sort of similar, except in this case the employer doesnt pay his staff if the clients didnt pay their accounts

 

[ArtyLoop]

More and more victims of dodgy companies looking for help on MyBroadband.

 

[Nobody Important]

Dodgy company.

The company cannot hold the employees salary or part of it ransom based on non-performance of a debtor.

Unless perhaps the "employee" is not actually an employee and is a debt collector. A dodgy company may structure the contract so that the person is a contractor not an employee and perhaps remuneration is structured accordingly.

Unlikely but then again I have not seen the contract so pure speculation and I could very possibly be completely wrong.

 

[Arthur]

Start with the employee contract. I presume this is a regular sales job. If it makes no express mention of pay contingent on customer payment then I would think the employer doesn't have a leg to stand on. All the employee has to do is conclude the sale, and that is conventionally done when an invoice is raised after receipt of a PO. In other words, the customer is contracted to purchase as the Offer has been Accepted.

As an aside: Unless the employee is selling stuff worth hundreds of thousands per invoice, this sounds like a horribly exploitative deal. Depressing to think there are people who employ others on these sorts of terms.