Boss charging employees for training?

egan007

Hi

Background: Small Irish company ~30 people.
Key people are leaving because it's a shambles.
The boss makes every decision, management is non existant....

The boss has put into the employee handbook that,

If you leave you will be required to pay for any training you recieved in the previous 12 months.

This is a ploy to stop his fed up workforce leaving his circus.

Can he do this??

Thanks

padser

Depends really. he certainly cant introduce a new term into a contract after a worker has started working. He is entitled to put a term into a contract before someone agrees/signs the contract. In fact under the payment of wages act 1991 taking payment for training directly from wages is one of the few ways an employer can make deductions from wages, however there are strict rules.

You need to pick an individual worker, and give details of their situation.

~When did they start?
~Did they sign a contract?
~What standing does the handbook have?
~When was this put into the handbook?

seamus

As padser says. Unless this condition was specifically outlined when the employment was started, the employer wouldn't really have a whole lot of ground to stand on.

If the situation as regards training was never made clear (i.e. if they never specifically said they would or wouldn't pay for training), then I would suspect that he can do this - However, there would have to be a reasonable amount of time between annoucing the change and implementing it. If he announced it, and then two days later a guy decided to leave, it wouldn't be reasonable to make him pay for his training. The employer would also have to take the employee to court to get his cash back, and unless, say six months had passed since he announced the change I'd say the court would tell him where to go.

Under no circumstances can he deduct the cost from your wages - this would require a change in contract. If you sign a new contract with this in it, then obviously he can do it to you.

jimmycrackcorm

I doubt if it can be enforced if the employee was let got or sacked. It's a bit like the stipulation that you cannot work for any competing company afterwards.