Business services firm fails to pay cleaners after computer glitch

Thousands of cleaners working for pest control group Rentokil Initial have been left unpaid following a computer glitch.

Because of a “transmission” error, salary transfers were not completed on Friday, leaving about 16,000 employees out of pocket ahead of the weekend.

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However, Rentokil Initial has assured staff that money will reach their bank accounts on Tuesday. In the meantime, it said emergency funds would be available to workers. 

A spokesman for the GMB union said: “We will be assessing the cost of this failure to our members in terms of bank charges and we are hopeful that Rentokil will pay them all.”