- Stock controllers earned as high as 30k per month - New system dropped salaries to below 10k - Employees allege unlawful deductions
Twelve (12) Gaborone Game Store’s stock controllers have dragged their employer to court demanding to be given their monies.
According to court documents leaked to this publication by trusted sources, the aggrieved employees are accusing Game Store of theft after the employer deducted huge sums from their salaries.
Filed documents suggest that Game Store unlawfully deducted some monies from their salaries over several months and that no valid explanation was given.
What they see in their payslips is 'salary advance deductions' but to their shock, they have never asked the employer to loan them money.
At the time of seeking court intervention in April last year, the total deductions stood at P100 000 for all 12 employees.
Employees at Game Store are paid an agreed basic salary which mostly hovers around P2 500 to P5 000. They are also paid overtime if they work extra hours.
In addition, there is a sales commission for every qualifying sale made by an employee. There are also Supplier Incentive Value (SPIV) and Game Incentive Value (GIV) benefits that come in monetary form during payday.
The applicants say that they have not been paid their SPIV and GIV commissions from May 2020. And that the employer has introduced a new commission structure (SAP System) which strangely does not show individual sales figures.
They now wonder how they got paid because, in the old system, they were given a printout for all the calculations prior to monthly payments. They believe the secretive commission calculations brought about by the SAP system are unfair.
“The atmosphere at the shop is very tense, the aggrieved want their money. They were used to salaries that went as high as P30 000 or P20 000 per month but the deductions have since seen some go home with less than P10 000,” one of the store leaders said.
The source noted that at Game Store it is all about individual brilliance, the basic salary is low meaning the employees need to sell as many items as possible to get better pay.
In addition, since the war began, there is no peace at the store, everyone is on high alert. The workers are suspicious of each other. They are divided, which makes it hard to trust anyone in the shop. It is hard to tell who is snitching or innocently working.
When responding to the aggrieved, Game Store represented by Bookbinder Business law attorneys denied that they unlawfully deducted employees’ monies.
According to them and through a witness statement of store manager Kedi Ngakane, they overpaid employees in 2020 and are now in an effort to recover the said monies.
“On or about 19 March 2021, the respondents issued a letter to its employees including the applicants notifying them of the said overpayment and that the respondent will be engaging in an exercise to recover the overpaid amounts,” reads the statement.
The store manager explained that SPIVs are sums paid by suppliers to the store and ultimately its employees for purposes of encouraging sales of specific products. GIV on the other hand is an incentive scheme provided by the store to its employees.
Ngakane also said that they had informed employees when introducing the new commission structure through store meetings and training sessions.
In April this year, Industrial Court Judge Tapiwa Moleele ruled that Game Store should provide the applicants with the sales records requested in an effort to shed light on the SPIV and GIV calculations.
In May 2022, Moleele agreed with the applicants that Game Store had not obeyed an order he made in April. He ordered once again, that the Game Store comply by June.
The judge emphasised that the records were important to determine the GIV and SPIV allowances.
The case is expected to go to trial on the 17th of August.
According to court documents leaked to this publication by trusted sources, the aggrieved employees are accusing Game Store of theft after the employer deducted huge sums from their salaries.
Filed documents suggest that Game Store unlawfully deducted some monies from their salaries over several months and that no valid explanation was given.
What they see in their payslips is 'salary advance deductions' but to their shock, they have never asked the employer to loan them money.
At the time of seeking court intervention in April last year, the total deductions stood at P100 000 for all 12 employees.
Employees at Game Store are paid an agreed basic salary which mostly hovers around P2 500 to P5 000. They are also paid overtime if they work extra hours.
In addition, there is a sales commission for every qualifying sale made by an employee. There are also Supplier Incentive Value (SPIV) and Game Incentive Value (GIV) benefits that come in monetary form during payday.
The applicants say that they have not been paid their SPIV and GIV commissions from May 2020. And that the employer has introduced a new commission structure (SAP System) which strangely does not show individual sales figures.
They now wonder how they got paid because, in the old system, they were given a printout for all the calculations prior to monthly payments. They believe the secretive commission calculations brought about by the SAP system are unfair.
“The atmosphere at the shop is very tense, the aggrieved want their money. They were used to salaries that went as high as P30 000 or P20 000 per month but the deductions have since seen some go home with less than P10 000,” one of the store leaders said.
The source noted that at Game Store it is all about individual brilliance, the basic salary is low meaning the employees need to sell as many items as possible to get better pay.
In addition, since the war began, there is no peace at the store, everyone is on high alert. The workers are suspicious of each other. They are divided, which makes it hard to trust anyone in the shop. It is hard to tell who is snitching or innocently working.
When responding to the aggrieved, Game Store represented by Bookbinder Business law attorneys denied that they unlawfully deducted employees’ monies.
According to them and through a witness statement of store manager Kedi Ngakane, they overpaid employees in 2020 and are now in an effort to recover the said monies.
“On or about 19 March 2021, the respondents issued a letter to its employees including the applicants notifying them of the said overpayment and that the respondent will be engaging in an exercise to recover the overpaid amounts,” reads the statement.
The store manager explained that SPIVs are sums paid by suppliers to the store and ultimately its employees for purposes of encouraging sales of specific products. GIV on the other hand is an incentive scheme provided by the store to its employees.
Ngakane also said that they had informed employees when introducing the new commission structure through store meetings and training sessions.
In April this year, Industrial Court Judge Tapiwa Moleele ruled that Game Store should provide the applicants with the sales records requested in an effort to shed light on the SPIV and GIV calculations.
In May 2022, Moleele agreed with the applicants that Game Store had not obeyed an order he made in April. He ordered once again, that the Game Store comply by June.
The judge emphasised that the records were important to determine the GIV and SPIV allowances.
The case is expected to go to trial on the 17th of August.
