Piecework Vs Minimum Wage

[arrymong]

Afternoon all,
I have a dilemma and I'm hoping you crazy cats might be able to help me. I'm the assistant manager in a factory and I am tasked with calculating weekly wages for about 50 employees. About six of these are pieceworkers who are paid per product. On a good day (or if they are making a highly priced product) they are able to make well above minimum wage. My issue is that should they be given a task for which it is impossible to exceed minimum wage or if the have been given a task that doesn't involve manufacturing e.g. Cleaning. Then the company has to make their wages up to minimum wage and my company accountant says I should deduct money from the "good days" to make up the shortfall on the "bad days". Morally I am uncomfortable with this as I don't believe that we should be tinkering with people's earnings in this way. I would like to know your thoughts on this and the legality of it too.

Thanks in advance

[fiction-factory]

You as the assistant manager, or the manager, should have the final say on this rather than your accountant. If you feel uncomfortable doing then don't- so long as you are prepared to pay any additional costs that might arise.
I'm not an expert on NMW but I understand Pay must be related to the specific pay reference period- so if they are paid weekly for example you can spread their earnings over the week to ensure they have exceeded the minimum wage figure for the overall hours worked.
I'm surprised though that there would be any jobs where minimum wage can't be achieved over that job- it suggests the job times/piecework rates are wrong

[ummmm]

We used to pay piecework but that was on top of their wages. We called it a bonus.

We had a 17 year old apprentice start with us learning to remove small dents from cars. We paid him a bonus per dent. He was brilliant at it and within a few months he was earning about 1k a week. He was getting paid for his hard work. As long as the company are not losing money it should be paid fairly.

[Peter Pedant]

well I wondered if someone must have done this before
( we are paying our workers too little - how do we calculate it and what the arrears are? )
and the answer is here - - I think

https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/calculating-national-minimum-wage-and-living-wage-arrears

you rob peter to pay paul within the pay reference period
and clearly how you calculate THAT depends heavily on the start and stop date

I would ask the accountant what he thinks the arrears are
he is a bean counter and not human - he will love jerking the figures around ....

[Peter Pedant]

ummz piece whilst heart warming and inspiring is only of use if you have a few youngish panel beaters on your books

or as umm herself has said - pure bull ..... Hi umm!

[ummmm]

He wasn't a panel beater. He was an auto dent repairer.

Panel beaters got paid the going wage...probably more tbh...my ex is a **** but he paid the staff really well as long as they worked hard.

[ummmm]

I didn't swear there btw. I put the **** in myself.