You have not been paid
Unpaid wages is the one employment matter where this corpus can show you a court's jurisdiction directly: the Industrial Court hears civil claims arising out of Remuneration Regulations, and can order an employer to pay the difference.
Written by the juris team. Not yet reviewed by a Mauritian lawyer.
What to do
- List each period you were not paid for, and the amount you say is owed for each.
- Keep payslips, bank statements, the roster or timesheet, and any message about pay.
- Try conciliation at the Ministry of Labour first: it is free and it does not close any other door.
- A claim about minimum remuneration goes to the Industrial Court, not to the Employment Relations Tribunal.
What the law says
The Industrial Court has jurisdiction over civil claims arising out of Remuneration Regulations.
Notwithstanding subsection (5), the Industrial Court shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine any civil claim arising out of any Remuneration Regulations.
On a conviction for underpaying the minimum, the Court may order the employer to pay the worker the difference.
Where an employer is convicted of an offence under subsection (2) which consists in the payment to a worker of a lesser remuneration than the minimum remuneration specified in Remuneration Regulations, the Industrial Court may, without prejudice to any penalty which may be imposed under subsection (2), order the employer to pay to the worker the difference between the amount which ought to have been paid as remuneration and the amount actually paid.
What this guide does not cover
- The minimum wage figure that applies to your job. Minimum remuneration is fixed by Remuneration Regulations and sector Remuneration Orders. Those are subsidiary instruments; this corpus holds subsidiary legislation for 2024 to 2026 only, and the roughly thirty sector orders are all older than that. juris can show you the Court that hears the claim, not the figure.
Where the matter is heard
- Ministry of Labour: conciliation by the supervising officer: A labour dispute between a worker and an employer, before it is reported to the President of the Commission for Conciliation and Mediation.
- Industrial Court: Prosecutions for employment offences, including an employer paying less than the minimum remuneration fixed by Remuneration Regulations.