What to do when you don't get paid by a farmer?

Kerry2016

Hi everyone, I was wondering if ye could help solve my dilemma. I was working for a farmer as part of work placement for Pallaskenry Ag College, I had to do the work placement to get my green cert. I was working for the farmer for 3 months during spring and I was working 50 hours a week for him, I would have done more hours for him but I was busy also working on my own farm. For the 3 months work I only got paid €750, the farmer never gave me as much as an apple or a glass of water and he was suppose to feed me as part of the deal. As things stand he owes me about €2,000. What can I do to try and get my money?

_Brian

Was it organised by the college?? Be going back to talk to them about it.

jaymla627

Kerry2016 wrote: »

Hi everyone, I was wondering if ye could help solve my dilemma. I was working for a farmer as part of work placement for Pallaskenry Ag College, I had to do the work placement to get my green cert. I was working for the farmer for 3 months during spring and I was working 50 hours a week for him, I would have done more hours for him but I was busy also working on my own farm. For the 3 months work I only got paid €750, the farmer never gave me as much as an apple or a glass of water and he was suppose to feed me as part of the deal. As things stand he owes me about €2,000. What can I do to try and get my money?

Contact placement officer in collage, your definitely owed money but might have a hard time getting 2 grand AFAIK the rate is 120 euro our therebouts for the first 35 hours and your ment to have a agreement with farmer after this for extra hours worked.....
Disappointing to see this messing is still going on with host farmers with teagasc facilitating it, have first hand expirence of your case where I was been short-changed like you needless to say the sweet sum of f**k all was done by the placement officer and the farmer in question still gets free slave labour every spring

mickdw

Plough up 10 acres of meadow. That will show him.
Only joking.
By the minimum rate mentioned above, you are due about another 1000 before you consider the extra hours. I'd target getting that basic rate. You will struggle to get anything else I'd say.

whelan2

jaymla627 wrote: »

Contact placement officer in collage, your definitely owed money but might have a hard time getting 2 grand AFAIK the rate is 120 euro our therebouts for the first 35 hours and your ment to have a agreement with farmer after this for extra hours worked.....
Disappointing to see this messing is still going on with host farmers with teagasc facilitating it, have first hand expirence of your case where I was been short-changed like you needless to say the sweet sum of f**k all was done by the placement officer and the farmer in question still gets free slave labour every spring

This and give a date that you want it sorted by

popa smurf

What kind of terms did you leave after 3 months is he giving you the poor mouth or what he probably thinks that you worked the extra hours on your own accord this is not a get rich scheme you should have done feck all for this tight ass and you should have known this after a few days when like you said he didn't give you a sausage go back and try and get 1000 off him by cash or maybe some stock and if he don't play ball its off to small claims court where you might do better than the grand and you might get paid for all the hours worked

kerry cow

You worked 12 weeks @ approximately 120 /wk , that's 1440 . He paid you 750 and so owes you 690 euro .Unfortunately you if you don't have a written agreement for extra hours or a weekly time sheet written by the farmer , clocking in and out , then it's word v word .
We operate here , a clocking in and out sheets and agreed hourly rate of pay. ,paid weekly .and also its the students problem to feed himself .your not a baby .your there to learn . And why did you not get paid weekly and question your terms then and not now . Yes I hope you have learned your lesson.put it down to experience .collect your 690 and move on .

Kerry2016

Your a ****ing idiot. I signed a contract with him to get minimum wage after the first 35 hours each week. To be exact he owes me €1830.

Kerry2016

My last post was for "KerryCow" by the way

tractorporn

popa smurf wrote:

That boat has sailed I am afraid you would only be getting your friends in to trouble and most of these large farmers have shot guns and aren't afraid to use them you and your mates would be trespassing and intimidating so don't do anything foolish

Well he has to try something he can just chalk it down to experience. Like said before I would contact your placement officer but it turn up in his yard with your old man or some other family you said you were farming at home as well so your dad is probably used to a bit of bargaining. Just be aware tho that it may be easier get stock out out of him than cash but I'm afraid I can't see you getting 2k out of him. Best of luck

popa smurf

Kerry2016 wrote: »

Your a ****ing idiot. I signed a contract with him to get minimum wage after the first 35 hours each week. To be exact he owes me €1830.

You work for 1.25 an hour kerry 2016 and you call kerry cow an idiot is this kerry joke week

Kerry2016

popa smurf wrote: »

You work for 1.25 an hour kerry 2016 and you call kerry cow an idiot is this kerry joke week

It was work placement for Ag college, should I of failed the course instead?

kerry cow

We know who the idiot is . Work 6 weeks and don't get paid ?? Sorry but you couldn't figure him out and you were there 12 weeks . Sorry , but only stateing facts .no need to be foul mouthed . You learn from your mistakes .you were vulnerable and innocent and he played with you . Fact .

kay 9

Solicitors letter may help. Terrible culture in Ireland of leaving people waiting for money

Water John

Best course, legal route also, is the Small Claims Court. You say he signed a contract. Contact the Clerk at the District Court. He will help you.

Reason Edit, had missed the post.

Water John

Kerry Cow, I seem to remember you had problems with your own staff.
Was your original post deleted?

whelan2

kay 9 wrote: »

Solicitors letter may help. Terrible culture in Ireland of leaving people waiting for money

Yes thats the point I was making sset a deadline with him for the payment to be made , if this is not met get a letter from solicitor, this normally sorts things out. Would probably cost around 100 euro to get the letter

Water John

Use Whelan's Sol letter or Small Claims Court. Your choice.

awaywithyou

anyway if your genuinely owed a few bob and i mean genuinely..... i would hound the farmer and the ag college til you get it..... get cross about it... very cross if you have to.....

all the best....

_Brian

Water John wrote: »

Use Whelan's Sol letter or Small Claims Court. Your choice.

Wouldn't go paying a solicitor until you try and resolve this with the college placement officer..

Completly disagree with any of the intimidation suggestions... this could spiral down a bad route quick enough.

Presume for small claims court you'll need the college in agreement with you so back to starting with them.

Water John

Away, the thought occurred to me too. Who pulled the 2 posts, the mod or himself?
I thought I was losing it there for a second. Now you see it, now you don't.

Sam Kade

awaywithyou wrote: »

anyway if your genuinely owed a few bob and i mean genuinely..... i would hound the farmer and the ag college til you get it..... get cross about it... very cross if you have to.....

all the best....

Mickie or Danny might be able to sort the problem

Water John

Martin would definintely sort it out, Sam.

awaywithyou

Sam Kade wrote: »

Mickie or Danny might be able to sort the problem

i must get some popcorn...!

Sam Kade

_Brian wrote: »

Wouldn't go paying a solicitor until you try and resolve this with the college placement officer..

Completly disagree with any of the intimidation suggestions... this could spiral down a bad route quick enough.

Presume for small claims court you'll need the college in agreement with you so back to starting with them.

Even though the small claims court is the cheapest way to sort it a lot of claimants never get paid even though they win their case.

Water John

I thought you were in contempt of court if you did not pay up. Its the same as a ruling by the Judge.

Could be very well on the ball there, Away.

He had problems with workers and problems with landlords. I suppose we should not speculate. But the pulled posts are intriguing.

Kovu

Kerry2016 wrote: »

Your a ****ing idiot. I signed a contract with him to get minimum wage after the first 35 hours each week. To be exact he owes me €1830.

Kerry2016, don't respond to posters like this, it's of no benefit to the discussion whatsoever.

And just to clear things up the intrigue, the mods have not deleted anything.

whelan2

Sam Kade wrote: »

Even though the small claims court is the cheapest way to sort it a lot of claimants never get paid even though they win their case.

The money can be claimed from their estate when they die

Base price

OP were you an insurable employee paying (supposed to pay) PRSI/PAYE?

Kerry2016

Base price wrote: »

OP were you an insurable employee paying (supposed to pay) PRSI/PAYE?

He said something about tax ages ago so I got onto my own accountant and gave that farmer all the tax credits that he wanted so it's not an issue to do with tax…

Kerry2016

Thanks very much everyone for all yer help so far… I don't know if going to a solicitor is the right way to go about this, with the way how legal fees have a tendency to get so high so fast I think I'd only be throwing good money after bad… do ye think the farmers journal or the farming independent would be willing to write a piece in either of their newspapers about how Ag College's use their students as slave labour for farmers? I keep trying to contact Pallaskenry Ag College and they won't return my calls even, I told the teacher who was in charge of my placement about the situation and he acted all interested at first but he never did anything about it… its some sickener that the farmer I was working for is getting away with having only paid me €750 for 3 months of brutal hard work

Water John

Kerry2016, the media won't get you the money owed. Might help your anger levels alright but not your key objective. Don't get sidetracked.

blue5000

Did you break anything when you were working there? Might be part of the problem?

Sam Kade

Water John wrote: »

I thought you were in contempt of court if you did not pay up. Its the same as a ruling by the Judge.

Could be very well on the ball there, Away.

He had problems with workers and problems with landlords. I suppose we should not speculate. But the pulled posts are intriguing.

If you don't pay up with the small claims court the sheriff will come to collect if they can't find you they don't follow it up.

ABEasy

Report him to NERA, they should sort it out fairly sharpish!

Kerry2016

ABEasy wrote: »

Report him to NERA, they should sort it out fairly sharpish!

What does NERA stand for and who are that crowd?

ABEasy

Edit sorry double post

NERA is the national employment rights authority, google their website all info is there

Kerry2016

ABEasy wrote: »

Edit sorry double post

NERA is the national employment rights authority, google their website all info is there

I tried ring up some labour tribunal crowd and they were a total joke, told me to fill in some form and they'd get it sorted in 4/6 months time about…

TitianGerm

blue5000 wrote: »

Did you break anything when you were working there? Might be part of the problem?

Just his own back working for 3 months for €750.

3 the square

:name and shame the pri%k at least u will feel better after it..:

kevthegaff

Kerry2016 wrote:

Thanks very much everyone for all yer help so far… I don't know if going to a solicitor is the right way to go about this, with the way how legal fees have a tendency to get so high so fast I think I'd only be throwing good money after bad… do ye think the farmers journal or the farming independent would be willing to write a piece in either of their newspapers about how Ag College's use their students as slave labour for farmers? I keep trying to contact Pallaskenry Ag College and they won't return my calls even, I told the teacher who was in charge of my placement about the situation and he acted all interested at first but he never did anything about it… its some sickener that the farmer I was working for is getting away with having only paid me €750 for 3 months of brutal hard work

I've said it a good few times but this farm placement is the biggest joke I ever heard about, heard bad reports from numerous friends, slave lab our.. most of these guys are in the IFA or are in the know. Rang them 4 yrs ago and no answer back about getting abit of help.

Kerry2016

He's from <snip> and has <snip> and as ye can clearly see he's a mean pr*ck so that surely narrows it down for anyone from around there


Mod: Despite the frustration felt, we can't allow information that could identify the farmer being published..

popa smurf

Maybe talk to joe duffy intresting tale about working for 1.25 an hour

Kerry2016

If refugees somehow made their way to the shore of Ireland and some farmer took them in and treated them in the same way as I was treated he'd probably get jail… I never got fed while I was there and I spent approx. €40 a week having to feed myself while working for him and another €30 then each week was spent on petrol to get there, so it actually ended up costing me €90 to work for him for the 3 months… I never took days off and I was never late and I was never in any way lazy

farming93

Done two placements biggest joke ever.. went on to work for a dairy farmer afterwards and couldn't have gotten on better learnt more in a week than I did in six months working as a student . Don't go the solicitor and root you'll have a bit of loose change by the end of it if your lucky.

fepper

In fairness Kerry 2016 ,you got the Kerry coop conversion motion good press coverage,I'm sure they'd highlight this for you as well

ganmo

Kerry2016 wrote: »

If refugees somehow made their way to the shore of Ireland and some farmer took them in and treated them in the same way as I was treated he'd probably get jail… I never got fed while I was there and I spent approx. €40 a week having to feed myself while working for him and another €30 then each week was spent on petrol to get there, so it actually ended up costing me €90 to work for him for the 3 months… I never took days off and I was never late and I was never in any way lazy

Tell every person in your year, and the year behind ya to avoid him like the plague.

Have you met your teagasc teacher face to face, might be worth mentioning court to him, it might light a fire under him

Now for the farmer
You got some money off him right? I doubt ya got payslips or a p45 he could be in trouble http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/pay_and_employment/no_p45_no_p60.html
First thing is to get the judgement

greysides

Kovu wrote: »

And just to clear things up the intrigue, the mods have not deleted anything.

Mod: For transparency, at this point, some posts have been edited and others deleted for a variety of reasons. Let's try to keep speculation about identity out of this thread and just give the OP the opinions and help he's requested.

Water John

Fair enough Mod.

50HX

shame him on Joe Duffy

Base price

Kerry2016 wrote: »

He said something about tax ages ago so I got onto my own accountant and gave that farmer all the tax credits that he wanted so it's not an issue to do with tax…

Employer’s PRSI obligations

Your employer is responsible for deducting your social insurance contribution from your wages and paying it together with the employer’s contribution to the Revenue. The deduction is written on your pay slip. If the amount paid to Revenue is not correct the employer is responsible for making up the deficit. Your employer keeps a record of the insurance contributions you make and is obliged to give you a P60 at the end of each year and a P45 if you leave the employment.
P45: If you leave your employment your employer must give you a P45 (pdf). This is a statement of your pay and the tax, Universal Social Charge (USC) and PRSI to date deducted by your employer. It is an important document and you need it if:....
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/pay_and_employment/no_p45_no_p60.html