Workers launch biggest ever legal claim over minimum wage dispute

A number of care workers are taking legal action against their contractor, alleging that they failed to pay them minimum wage.

Seventeen workers under Sevacare allege that their payslips prove they were on a rate of just £3.27 an hour, reports the BBC.

The worker union, Unison, claims that this is one of the worst breaches of pay rules it has ever seen. The suit alleges that the carers stayed for days at a time in the home of an elderly patient with severe dementia, and that they had to sleep on a bed in the same room to tend to her during the night.

The BBC reports that one employee likened the experience to “being in prison”. All of the workers were on zero-hour contracts.