The UK construction industry is worth an estimated £164bn, and yet, across the UK, tens of thousands of hard working trade professionals like you are suffering at the hands of a minority of customers that make late, or no payments for work.
We’re sure you’ll appreciate that not being paid is incredibly inconvenient, and can lead to serious financial difficulties when it comes to footing the cost of work materials, as well as making ends meet for your own family.
This year, we have joined forces with On The Tools to launch our #PayWhatYouOwe campaign, in order to highlight the issue, and demand an end to tradespeople not being paid for their time and hard work.
As part of the campaign On The Tools created a video, where customer Dave was named and shamed for not paying for a job that had been finished six weeks ago. Our stunt spread like wildfire, leading to thousands of shares, and almost one million views in just one week! Comments flooded in from trade professionals like you across the UK, who had experienced not being paid on time for a job, with some not being paid at all.
As well as raising the profile of the issue in the media, the #PayWhatYouOwe campaign also questions if the UK government could be doing more to protect the rights of tradespeople.
A change.org petition set up by us is gaining momentum, calling on the UK government to provide tradespeople - particularly those who are self-employed - with more support. This could include establishing the rights of what and how they are able to chase invoices long beyond their due date, and introducing enforceable fines for unpaid invoices to deter unnecessary late payments.
Scruffs believe that late payments or ignored invoices shouldn’t be an accepted part of the job for any self-employed tradesperson, and that more should be done to penalise those who put livelihoods at risk by not paying what they owe.
Have you been affected by late payments from customers? Click here to sign the petition, and share your experiences with us in comments, to be entered into a prize draw to win a stash of Scruffs Workwear!
