A luxury sales assistant in Harrods who took her employer to court after she was sacked for complaining about working 14 days in a row is still owed the £16,717.54 she won.
Alda Simoes was thrilled after she was offered a position at Swiss sofa designer De Sedes in Harrods in June 2018, after working at DFS for years.
But less than two months later the 48-year-old was sacked for complaining about being ‘treated like a slave’ and ordered to work 14 days straight.
She lost her home, could barely afford food, and had to send her son to live with family members.
But after a number of court hearings and appeals, she was awarded £16,000 in January of this year to be paid within one month.
Although Alda’s case is referenced in textbooks and has helped set precedent for workers’ rights, she is still owed the money – and has lost her home while waiting.
She told Metro: ‘My health has also suffered with the stress of this all. I have a weight on my heart knowing this is still not sorted.’
De Sedes hired Alda as they opened in Harrods in the summer of 2018, but failed to hire enough staff to cover the rota adequately.
Soon enough, managers were asking her to work 14 days straight to cover absences, which has been outlawed since 1998.
‘They kept asking me so I eventually agreed to work it anyway, but I complained to employment rights group Acas,’ she told Metro.
After Alda finished her two-week stint, she was called into her manager’s office and sacked.
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She said: ‘It took less than a minute for them to tell me I was gone. There was no explanation, just a “you need to go”. It took everything in me to not cry in front of them.
‘I went from good wages one minute to nothing – and to make it worse I was in the middle of a big sale with an £800 commission when I was sacked. I never saw this money.’
Alda, a mum-of-one, had to move from her home to a shared flat and send her son to live with his dad.
She also had to rely on financial help from friends and family for three months just to make ends meet as finding a new job in luxury furniture sales was hard, and she eventually returned to DFS.
‘I went into a deep depression because it wasn’t just the loss of my job, the people I worked with were my friends, so I lost my social circle too,’ she said.
The compensation awarded covers Alda’s loss of both past and future earnings.
Metro has contacted De Sedes, which has since moved out of Harrods, for comment.
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